World-leading research combats child abuse in the Caribbean
A steady stream of publications has come from the Caribbean research, including two books Understanding Child Sexual Abuse: Perspectives from the Caribbean and An Integrated Systems Model for Preventing Child Sexual Abuse. View the video Understanding Sexual Abuse with Professor Adele Jones below.
Tue, 10 Mar 2015 16:19:00 GMT
Groundbreaking research – commissioned by UNICEF – has had a global response
WORLD-class research by a University of Huddersfield expert and her team is contributing to the global impact in the fight against child sexual abuse.
Professor Adele Jones, of the Centre for Applied Childhood Studies, based in the University’s School of Human and Health Sciences, led a project commissioned by UNICEF that investigated the sexual exploitation of children in six Caribbean countries. Governments in several of them have embarked on legislative and policy reform in response to the findings, with Grenada leading the way.
At the close of 2014, outputs from the research were classed as “world leading” by the UK Government-backed Research Excellence Framework (REF). The research was the basis of a highly-commended case study and contributed to the University’s REF results which place Huddersfield as 10th in the country and number one of all ‘post-1992’ universities in England for Social Work and Social Policy.
Professor Jones is determined to ensure that her work continues and makes an impact. For example, she is due to attend a meeting in Honduras where she will hold talks with UNICEF, discussing measures to prevent sexual violence against children.
“This was really important research because we looked at the social and cultural drivers of abuse as a ‘whole of society’ problem, leading to more systemic ways of tackling it,” said Professor Jones. “The list of actions we have been engaged in over last six years has been quite phenomenal, including discussions with the governments of all the countries that participated.”
Public awareness
Once Professor Jones and her team had compiled their report, they embarked on a public dissemination programme in the Caribbean. This included a roadshow that was attended by leading politicians and professionals in the region as well as the general public, and was featured on television. The roadshow received funding from the UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID). Other partners in the ongoing work include the philanthropic Oak Foundation, the organisation Stop It Now, and the Sweet Water Foundation, which has a special focus on women and children at risk of sexual exploitation in the Caribbean.
The University of Huddersfield’s Centre for Applied Childhood Studies has also forged an important link with the University of the West Indies. A Memorandum of Understanding has recently been renewed and the relationship has been a very fruitful one, said Professor Jones.
“We have studied a global problem, which though prevalent in the Caribbean was under-researched, and we have done this alongside Caribbean researchers and local agencies, providing training and building capacity in the region at the same time. For example, Huddersfield provided scholarships for two PhD students, both of whom have now graduated,” she added.
Professor Jones said that her priority now was to continue working on gender-based violence and violence against children in the Caribbean. Projects she is hoping to develop include the use of computer technology in schools as a means of changing attitudes and restorative justice for juvenile sex offenders.
New work for the Caribbean
A steady stream of publications has come from the Caribbean research, including two books Understanding Child Sexual Abuse: Perspectives from the Caribbean and An Integrated Systems Model for Preventing Child Sexual Abuse. Newly published is the article Status, privilege and gender inequality: Cultures of male impunity and entitlement in the sexual abuse of children: Perspectives from a Caribbean study in the journal International Social Work. It was co-written by Professor Jones and Ena Trotman Jemmott, who has researched the care and protection needs of vulnerable children in the Caribbean for her University of Huddersfield PhD. The article describes how the research was conducted and the range of social and cultural factors that were encountered.
The authors state that: “Globally, commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) is escalating and the Caribbean has many of the negative social and economic characteristics generally associated with CSE such as high unemployment rates, social class and gender inequalities and social deprivation.”
The article concludes with a number of policy recommendations, including the “need to open up spaces for young people, men and women” where conventional views that associate “masculinity with sexual predation and femininity with sexual availability” can be challenged.
Professor Jones said she believed the spin-offs from her research were of great importance.
“We can never really know how many children are protected from abuse because of our research, but what we can say is that because of it, there are new policies, legislation and interventions in place and people have been trained.”
“This was new work for the Caribbean, but we have tried to make sure that our publications have international appeal,” added Professor Jones. “For example, in our recent article we looked at the culture of collusion and male impunity, which meant we were drawing parallels with the UK’s Jimmy Savile sexual abuse case.”
- PhD applicants interested in studying violence against children in Latin America and the Caribbean alongside Professor Jones may be eligible for a fee-reduction scheme currently offered by the School of Human and Health Sciences.
