Break the Silence Photo Competition 2015-2015
Kingston, Jamaica –Wednesday, November 25, 2015: The Office of the Children’s Registry (OCR) launched its ‘Break the Silence’ campaign on Thursday, June 11, 2015. The campaign seeks to increase reports of child abuse, and is primarily targeted at adults, though it also reaches out to children themselves through a junior campaign called ‘Enough’. This component encourages children to take a stand against child abuse by reporting it to the OCR.
The tagline ‘Break the Silence’ was developed after an island wide survey showed that though over 50% of Jamaican adults had knowledge of children being abused, only 11% had ever reported it. Since its initiation, the campaign has been supported by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and is considered a direct response to the ‘Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices’ survey on child maltreatment in Jamaica, which the OCR commissioned with technical and financial support from UNICEF.
The campaign has featured several prominent celebrities and business leaders, including Yendi Phillipps, Wayne Marshall, Tessanne Chin, Paula-Anne Porter and Simon Crosskill. Notably, the ‘Break the Silence’ campaign, since its inception, has focused only on three forms of child abuse in Jamaica: physical, sexual and emotional. As such, The OCR has decided that a strategic move needs to be put in place to shed some light on those other very important forms of child abuse which the original campaign does not speak to directly.
From this has originated the project of the Break the Silence Photo Competition of 2015-2016. This competition is to be considered an extension and expansion of the original ‘Break the Silence’ campaign as it creates the opportunity for other forms of child abuse to be brought to the public’s attention, and thus enter into the large global and national discourse on child abuse. 
These other forms include:
i. Neglect
ii. Child Labour, and
iii. Child Trafficking
Children are therefore urged to participate by capturing and submitting their own unique interpretations of the themes specified for their age group.
We encourage structure and creativity from each entrant.
