Persons working in children's home should be vetted ..........

Not just children's homes but indeed in places of safety, hospices, homeless shelters and any other type of residential facility that has intimate personal and prolonged contact that also has instances of privacy where abuse, psychological control/intimidation and other inappropriate acts can be committed. No psycho-therapeutic screening or some sort of related evaluation is done as part of the hiring process locally as I understand it thus far. In the US recently there was a major move by the federal government to reduce prison rapes by staff by a law that institutes stiff fines and time for those who are in breach and the withdrawal of federal funds from such facilities, male prison staff are not allowed for example to be seen near the females bathrooms or dorms without the proper clearances and same sex staff members are assigned to populations with the necessary close caption cameras in hallways non evasively though so as to monitor the movements of staff for suspicious activity. The recent passage of the Sex Offenders Registry bills locally have been welcomed by many human rights groups but they say more is needed.

Another US county was looking at the repeated reports of male rape and the "prison wife" phenomenon in their institutions where psychological control seems to be the motivator more so than the sexual outcomes. The matter of substitutional sex in as far as same sex abuse in confined spaces is not one that seems to be properly examined either locally as we too have this issue but the fear or remotely pegging homosexuality to our prison system will be vehemently opposed by the authorities as they cower in fear of being labelled as homosexuals or promoting the related activities.

a negative perception sign held over the priesthood

Lord knows for too long the negative perception of homosexuals in Jamaica generally as being predators not to mention men in the priesthood especially the notion that boys are ripe for the picking by just about any gay man is also a misnomer that however does not exclude the sometimes sophisticated paedophile who may be hiding within the systems of these institutions of the general population for that matter or the church in sensitive and leadership posts, be they expressing their intent through homosexual or heterosexual abuse of children. The challenge is that in the vetting process via the psycho-therapeutic methods (once they come into effect) if one is found or suspected to be a homosexual despite their professional qualifications and no signs of deviancy they maybe overlooked, discriminated against or not hired for the position seeing this homo-paedophile perception in the national psyche. 

Recent deliberations however for the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, DSM 5 slated for release May 2013 have not taken into account though hebephilia or ephebophilia which have so called victims over the age of 15 onwards.

A most recent case of the continued confusion between consenting same sex attracted adults and paedophiles came via a radio interview with the anti buggery, anti gay and anti abortion group the Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society who have taken a theocratic approach to solving our local challenges and are blind to sexual orientation while seeing homosexuality only as a "lifestyle"see: 

Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society, JCHS continued confusion of paedophilia & consenting homosexuality.

Studies and texts from the experts that even homo-paedophile cases do not actually predict the sexual orientation of the perpetrator as psychological control of the intended victim is the motivator, I am no psychologist by my blogging over these five years has forced me to mull over materials in a bid to clarify for myself this notion of gays wanting to have boys or fresh ass as is postured repeatedly as a reason for not affording same sex intimacy privacy and consent between ADULTS via removing or decriminalizing buggery. Ireland in repealing buggery was careful to add an amendment to cover child abuse known as the Child Defilement Clause. 

The definitive work by Nicholas Groth for example though published so long ago has been the Bible on the issue of abuse and the psychology of the offender, Ephebophilia or hebephilia refers to the sexual preference for adolescents around 15-19 years of age. Experts use specific terms for age preferences: ephebophilia to refer to the sexual preference for late adolescents, hebephilia to refer the sexual preference for pubescent persons, and pedophilia to refer to the sexual preference for prepubescent persons. The term paedophilia, however, has also been used colloquially to refer broadly to sexual interest in minors, regardless of their level of physical development. 

Ephebophilia is not listed as a paraphilia in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR), unlike paedophilia, which is categorized as a disorder in the manual.

Pedophilia or paedophilia has a range of definitions as found in psychology, law enforcement, and the popular vernacular. As a medical diagnosis, it is defined as a psychological disorder in which an adult experiences a sexual preference for prepubescent children. According to the DSM, paedophilia is specified as a form of paraphilia in which a person either has acted on intense sexual urges towards children, or experiences recurrent sexual urges towards and fantasies about children that cause distress or interpersonal difficulty. The disorder is frequently a feature of persons who commit child sexual abuse.

Nicholas Groth a pioneer in the scientific study of sexual offenders against women and children, who has treated over 3000 child molesters over the course of two decades, a former director of the Sex Offender Program at the Connecticut Department of Corrections and the author of Men Who Rape: Psychology of the Offender, a work widely regarded as a classic textbook on the psychology of sexual violence concurred in a recent debate on homosexuality vs paedophilia that "Homosexuality and homosexual pedophilia are not synonymous. In fact, it may be that these two orientations are mutually exclusive, the reason being that the homosexual male is sexually attracted to masculine qualities whereas the heterosexual male is sexually attracted to feminine characteristics, and the sexually immature child’s qualities are more feminine than masculine. . . . The child offender who is attracted to and engaged in adult sexual relationships is heterosexual. It appears, therefore, that the adult heterosexual male constitutes a greater sexual risk to underage children than does the adult homosexual male." 

In today's Jamaica Observer it was reported that such a call for persons to be vetted in children's homes and I agree as every disturbing story that comes out with an adult perpetrator and a younger victim is just worrisome. ALICIA DUNKLEY-WILLIS Observer senior reporter wrote: 

HEAD of the Mustard Seed Communities, Monsignor Gregory Ramkissoon says that the law must take retroactive effect on workers in children’s homes who are there without the required credentials.

“The law is now that they should have police records and all. We (at Mustard Seed) have been doing that for a while but that law just came in and people are already there (in the state system). To me they should be brought to book to fulfil the present law to have some semblance of order, even if they are already there,” Monsignor Ramkissoon told the Jamaica Observer.

The Catholic priest was speaking against the background of the physical, sexual, verbal abuse and misunderstanding of children in State care by some individuals employed as caregivers. He said part of the problem was caused by the less than adequate background checks done by State facilities.

“To be very honest, I don’t think there is any severe screening,” he said. ...If [they] went to one of those practical nursing schools, they go out there, next thing you know they have a job in a children’s home,” Ramkissoon said.

“So there is no psycho-therapeutical screening. Definitely there is no caregiving screening. Especially with the male workers, ‘come, you could be our security’, ‘come, you could be our driver’. Even if they want training, there is no in-house training and that’s a problem,” he noted.

On Monday, consultant psychiatrist Dr Wendel Abel said such gaps in the present system put wards in an even more precarious situation.

“Probably 70 to 80 per cent of the girls who find themselves in these situations are repeatedly sexually abused and individuals who have been repeatedly sexually abused need comprehensive therapeutic intervention, they can’t be just thrown into a facility where they are not provided with the necessary care because all we do is retruamatise them and destroy them for the rest of their lives,” said Dr Abel, who heads the University of the West Indies’ Department of Community Health and Psychiatry.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in a 1999 report, made it clear that staff who work in children’s homes and places of safety must be screened prior to employment to ensure they possess the skills and experience necessary to perform their job satisfactorily and, more importantly, have their backgrounds checked.

“Certain individuals appear to work out their personal pathology through the brutal subjugation and terror of powerless and defenceless children. Sometimes they use sexual abuse, sometimes physical and sometimes emotional abuse, sometimes all three. In spite of all endeavours to prevent it, such people occasionally manage to become appointed to childcare posts,” UNICEF said then.

The report further noted that residential care institutions in Jamaica will also attract a particular type who will perpetuate these same unacceptable acts on children, if appointed and when opportunities present themselves.

Also see the Jamaica Observer's video on Housing At Risk Children and Minors remanded with adults

ENDS

Also see: 

Male Sexual Assault Myths ...... "Cries of Men" 

Jamaica Observer: Gay vs Paedophile

Unacceptable no matter who does it (Paedophilia)

DSM 5 Needs To Reject Hebephilia Now says blogger

Brain scans used to detect paedophilia

Understanding Male Sexual Abuse