The Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) has confirmed the authenticity of a viral video in which a mother was seen violently beating her child over the weekend. The incident reportedly happened sometime in September in a rural community in Westmoreland.
“We have located the mother and child, both are living in a community in Westmoreland. A team has spoken to members of the community and they are saying that this kind of behaviour is unlike the mother, she has never used this type of method to discipline the child who is about four or five years old,” Rochelle Dixon, public relations and communications manager at the CPFSA, told Loop Jamaica reporter Claude Mills on Monday morning.
She said that the CPFSA has arranged to do a psychiatric evaluation and to do counselling sessions with the mother, and will conduct counselling sessions for the child as well.
“The beating happened in September, and we are yet to get a full report from the social worker and investigator on the scene so we don’t know about scars as yet, but the report should be done today. The question though is how do we change the culture of how parents discipline their children in Jamaica? How do we get them to understand the long term and short term effects of corporal punishment, and how it affects the social and mental well being of children,” Dixon mused.
The CPFSA is a merger of the Office of the Children’s Registry (OCR) and the Child Development Agency.
Jamaicans recoiled in horror on social media over the weekend in reaction to the video of the mother beating her young child for over six minutes and, at one point, even threatening to cut off her neck.
“Wah mi tell yuh seh? Lef outta company lef outta company. A day time mi send you go school fi do yuh work; work mi send yuh go a school fi do. Mi will kill you. Yuh hear wah mi seh? Stay outta company,” the mother shouted, punctuating each sentence with a box to the face or jab to the forehead.
Then she upped the ante by threatening to make the next beating worse.
“Yuh naah go mek dem shoot mi…Next time a di buckle mi a use, stop ramp up with company, yu hear wah mi say? Mi nah tell yu again, ah the buckle part mi a go use..yu nah drop back sake a bad company, ah mi one…before yu drop back, mi wi go cut off yu neck,” she declared, continuing the assault even as the child writhed in agony on the ground.
The police have since issued an appeal for the woman seen in the video beating the young child to turn herself in to the nearest police station.
This latest video comes on the heels of a similar one in October which showed a St Thomas mother violently beating her 12-year-old daughter with a machete.
The CPFSA has also sent a team to St Mary to talk to the family of the teenager who made a video complaining about being bullied before he committed suicide last week.
Mi convince now seh ano just job an ting parents outta or poverty, more to it….A di mental pawt of it, cause a wah kina company yuh couldana tell dat deh lilly pickney fi stay outta???? No man dis well seerus now….. See dem about fi give di early pawt a di chipping an hunnu a wurry bout beating????? Hunnu fi a pile up fi go dung a di politicians wey sell hunnu out and go run een an beat dem….Dem fraid a di mass a ppl dem cyahh control we if we come 2gedda…. but some suh rassclaat brain dead aready dat dem clueless. Mi convince yea, mi convince seh di focus and knowledge is off! dem nuh know nuh betta…It sad yow sad sad sad!!!
U r right,. And u hear weh shi se … Yu nah mek dem shoot mi … could be that the other child have those kinda ppl in her family … all mi a se wen mi watch di video dem a just one way mi si and a how di country set up and a frustrate ppl … that’s it
Just how dem get socialized. There is a part of Jamaican society where this kind of thing is normal and I think is just cause they don’t know better. This is what dem grow n see. Couldn’t watch the whole thing cause she rass the pickney for doing what small children do. Run wild and play with other pickney. Then tell her she will use di buckle next time. That upset mi. These parents have to be shown another way. Punishmentbisbone thing and abuse is just abuse. Den she all have a next one, made me so sad that them born into that. That rasshole that recording…kmft