AMECEA: Secretariat Brainstorms On Creating Child Safeguarding Environment
Down-scaling global child safeguarding standards to fit the environments of institutions within the church would ensure that child protection policies are being utilized to expose the harms and risks facing children in the church.
This has been amplified at a two-day meeting that was held at the AMECEA Secretariat from the 8th to 9th November 2018, where the heads of departments and staff brainstormed on the institution’s Child Safeguarding Standards and Policy.
Opening the meeting that brought together all heads of Departments at AMECEA, Fr Emmanuel Chimombo, the Pastoral Coordinator and Deputy Secretary General said, “All the Departments have come together so as to analyze the AMECEA Secretariat as a Church institution, in view of developing a Policy document that will ensure that there is indeed a child safe environment.”
Fr Chimombo further said that every individual member of staff at the Secretariat is important in this process and that each player has to plays his or her role. He also added that the exercise shall eventually translate into a project that will come up with Child Safeguarding Standards and Guidelines that will serve as a framework to be used by the Conferences in the region in strengthening their existing Child Protection Policy documents.
Miss Isabel de Bruin Cardoso who facilitated the meeting commended the Secretariat for making child protection and safeguarding a priority.
“While we must appreciate the fact that the United Nations and the African Union conventions have already provided some common Child Safeguarding standards, there is still possibility of children but also the individuals who are working in Church institutions being exposed to harm and risks if the Church institutions such as AMECEA Secretariat and Catholic schools, hospitals, parishes and media houses are not guided by clear standards and policies as inspired by their own mission and values,” she said.
Participants included the Pastoral Department Coordinator Fr Emmanuel Chimombo; Integral Human Development Department Coordinator, Fr Paul Igweta; and Social Communications Department Coordinator, Fr Andrew Kaufa; while Ms. Pauline Wakibiru represented all lay members of staff at the Institution.
Background
In the 1980s, allegations of sexual abuse associated with the Catholic Church institutions seemed to be an Irish problem. At the beginning of this millennium, the Church learn that the scandal is also a reality in the United States so much that the then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (who became Pope Benedict XVI) convinced Pope John Paul II to give the Vatican’s Congregations of the Doctrine of Faith the responsibility of investigating the allegations and to discipline the perpetrators.
In his reflection about the Boston child abuse scandal, John Allen once commended Pope John Paul II for displaying great wisdom and firmness in handling those cases; for demonstrated great courage in facing some of the most difficult and thorny cases without exceptions.
The investigative reports that recently came from some dioceses in the United States have once again put Pope Francis into the limelight. With ‘shame and sorrow’, as the Holy Father put it, these allegations cannot be ignored as mere smear propaganda against the Church, furthermore, transferring the perpetrator from one parish to another to avoid embarrassment is even more dangerous but to find ways to solve the problem; and to assist both the victimized and the victimize.
It is with this background that the AMECEA Secretariat has found it important that child safeguarding standards and policies are developed and that all its members take seriously compliance to the requirements. Through AMECEA Secretariat’s Pastoral Department, a process has been initiated that will see the institution and probably some other Member Episcopal Conferences enhancing child safeguarding capacity and strengthening the child protection environment in all Church institutions in the region.
Through this meeting, participants have recognized the possible harm to any Catholic organization today with regard to child safeguarding, aware that it could be either by acts committed or actions omitted; consciously and unconsciously; due to internal or external factors. They also took cognizance of the fact that despite the existence of so many policy documents and guidelines within institutions, the AMECEA Secretariat must have a safeguarding policy in place and that ways must be found to ensure that all members of staff are in compliance.
They have also noted some dangers with regard to implementations of Child Protection Policies such as lack of commitment as some think that these are issues to do with one Department or the other; that child abuse is a foreign problem and that these policy documents are rather imposed from outside.
To mitigate the possible risks, participants proposed to manage a number of activities that include designating an officer responsible for Child Safeguarding and policy implementation, monitoring and evaluation; mainstreaming of the standards into the human resource manual, beginning with the recruitment procedures up to the appraisal system; and engaging relevant individuals in each department.
Way forward
Fr Emmanuel Chimombo assured participants that all these recommendations shall be brought to the attention of AMECEA Executive Board and that this will be the journey the Pastoral Department is ready to champion for the next few years until a Child Safeguarding Policy for AMECEA Secretariat is in place; and a framework for the standards is available for interested Conferences in the region.
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AMECEA Online News Correspondent
