PARLIAMENT'S JOINT Select Committee examining the Child Care and Protection Bill meets this morning at Gordon House. This is an important piece of legislation, given the widespread abuse of children, many under the care and protection of the State.

Children, of course, are one of the nation's most important assets and this newspaper welcomes, endorses and supports any move to protect them from child labour, pornography, the sex trade, pederasts or any other type of predator, or to reunite missing children with their families.

In Jamaica in recent times, we have had the scandal of children being abused and neglected in government ­ and privately-run homes and places of safety. Drive through any busy Corporate Area intersection and you are likely to see young children begging for alms, while they should be in school. Almost to a boy, they could do with a good meal. After years of talk, the education system still is without a truancy service. Children are the future of our nation and there is little more important than protecting them.

We find it absurd, however, for the Government to be proposing the imposition of penalties on the media of $1 million or 10 years in prison for the 'unauthorised publication' of any report revealing the particulars of a child involved in 'certain court proceedings'. In any case, all sex matters involving children are heard by judges and juries in private.

We are not sure what has prompted the Government to be putting forward such penalties at this time. We are not aware of any widespread airing or publication of material which put the nation's children at risk. Indeed, Media houses have strict internal policies against the naming of children in certain court matters. And we scrupulously guard against the unintentional identification of minors by association.

These are policies which we honour. So why the rush to penalise the media?

We strongly recommend to members of the committee that instead of focusing on penalising the media in situations, the occurrence of which are so rare as to defy recent memory, they concentrate instead on the real dangers which threaten the nation's children. Have the instances of rape and abuse in some state-run children's homes and places of safety been eliminated to the satisfaction of all?

And while the committee is about it they could look at the problem of combating child victimisation by forming co-operative linkages with other jurisdictions world-wide to combat the rising crime of human trafficking, which too often, involves young children.

John Junor, who chairs the joint select committee, appears to be in a rush to get this bill passed before the end of the current fiscal year, March 31. We suggest careful deliberations involving all the various stakeholders, including the media, before this bill is passed by the Houses of Parliament.

We urge the Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ) and the Media Association of Jamaica (MAJ) to aggressively oppose any move to pass legislation which impacts negatively on freedom of the press.

THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.