Reports

Jamaica’s children are in need of more and more available, specialized, and consistent mental health services. Most mental disorders that afflict adults have their genesis in childhood and adolescence. The first five years of life are the most critical with regard to brain development, including the development of emotional control and habitual ways of responding. Directing investments and efforts towards treatment and support in the early stages of brain development would redound to enhanced educational achievements, more positive adult outcomes, and, ultimately, boost national development.

The COVID-19 pandemic and response have wrought widespread changes in employment levels, household income, measures for keeping children safe, and daily life at the household and community level. Globally there are indications that the pandemic has led to an increase in certain types of violence. Given Jamaica’s pervasive violence problem, this trend raises concerns, and so ascertaining what impact the pandemic has had on violence, while methodologically challenging, is necessary. Jamaica consistently ranks as one of the most violent countries in the world in all these categories. There is an ongoing need for reliable evidence to inform policies, programmes, and interventions to reduce violent behaviour and enhance citizen security.

This report examines the quality of state care for children in Jamaica. It focuses on the role that governance plays in the development and implementation of policies and programmes whose stated aim is to promote the best interests of children in need of care and protection. Consistent with many other low-resourced countries, Jamaica does not have a robust governance structure to coordinate and oversee the effective management of state care programmes for children. The current governance structure lacks a number of important characteristics including: active collaboration, clear escalation pathways, effective and consistent communication, as well as guidance and enforcement mechanisms.

Abortion is illegal in Jamaica. It is, however, easily obtainable, albeit with varying degrees of safety. In Jamaica, complications from abortion is the third leading cause of maternal death. Complications from unsafe abortions burden the public health system and exact economic, societal, familial, and individual costs. The familial and individual costs are disproportionately borne by poor, vulnerable women and their dependents. There are financial and opportunity costs of unsafe abortion morbidity and mortality as borne by the public health system when women seek treatment from complications arising from unsafe terminations (or attempted terminations.) Finally, there are legal costs: women who seek medical services to safely terminate a pregnancy, and medical practitioners who provide those services, risk arrest and prosecution. This report examines the negative societal and individual outcomes resulting from the unlawfulness of safe termination of pregnancy in Jamaica, and measures the economic impact of those negative outcomes.