CPFSA credits relationship with JCF for swift investigations

THE CHILD Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) is crediting its relationship with the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) for swift investigations of viral child-abuse videos.

There have been several videos circulating on social media in recent times, showing children being abused.

Director of Children and Family Programmes at the CPFSA, Dr Warren Thompson, told JIS News that they share the videos with the police as soon as they are made aware of the matter.

“Once those are sent to the CPFSA, we usually send them to the Centre for Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA), the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Unit or the Cyber Crime Unit, for them to try and identify the provenance of the video ... because sometimes, like the other day, I got a video of a person beating a child in a basic school and people thought that was in Jamaica, but it wasn’t Jamaica,” Dr Thompson said.

He explained that, in instances where they are certain the video originated in Jamaica, they take a slightly different approach.

“Where we don’t go through all of that and we know that this is in Clarendon - for argument’s sake - we tend to go to the police first to find out, ‘’do you know which community this is? Do you have any information’?” Dr. Thompson said.

He noted that the CPFSA also conducts joint operations with the JCF. “We have actually participated in a number of joint operations with the police, including the TIP Unit. If they’re going to do an operation in the island, they usually ask for CPFSA officers to be with them,”Dr Thompson noted.

“When we are trying to identify children or locate children, very often we have to go to the police for an escort or to have them assist us with removal, or just to accompany us because we believe that the area may not be safe. So, we work very closely with the JCF,” he added.