A total of 4,917 cases of child abuse were recorded last year, while 495 have been reported for January 2019, a statement from the Child Care and Protection Agency (CPA) has said, even as its Director, Ann Greene, called for journalists to confirm the validity of data before publishing.
Greene, through a statement from the agency yesterday, chided journalists for recent reports that were “void of accuracy and misrepresented the facts and statistics of the agency”, and reiterated a call for information to be verified before publishing.
“I need the media to check to see that there is accuracy, particularly with statistics. Even if someone says something and it sounds strange and you have access to them, please verify the information, before wide publicity of inaccurate information. Since we had the stakeholder meeting with the police, there are some inaccurate statements going around the media and it is not entirely what we wanted to convey,” Greene stated.
It was reported in a recent release that in 2018, there were 481 cases of child abuse reported to the CPA, while 134 have been recorded for 2019.
However, in the CPA’s statement yesterday, the statistics vastly differ; it is reported that in 2018, there was a total of 4,917 cases of child abuse, while for January this year, there have been 495.
Of last year’s reports, 2,431 were cases of child neglect; 1,115 were reports of physical abuse; 980 were sexual abuse cases; 308 were verbal/emotional abuse cases; 50 were cases where children witnessed abuse; and 33 were cases of abandonment.
For January 2019, there have been 229 cases of neglect; 96 cases of physical abuse; 123 cases of sexual abuse; 38 cases of
verbal/emotional abuse; six cases of children witnessing abuse; and three cases of abandonment.
It was previously reported that Greene, during a stakeholder consultation involving the police, urged them to be proactive and strive to have those accused of child abuse charged within 72 hours. It was said that she had noted too that parents should be held accountable, and statements should be taken from the child in the presence of a probation officer in instances where obtaining information on the case proved difficult.
“The CPA Director clarified that during the stakeholder meeting, she explained that the Probation/Child Protection Officers and the police are sometimes reluctant to charge parents for abuse of children, but rather prefer to work with them to solve the issue…She added that parents must be charged at times so that they can be held accountable. Further, some parents are reluctant to cooperate with the Officers and police to correct the deficiencies that are creating vulnerability for children,” the statement noted.
It added that with regard to sexual abuse, Greene stressed that it is a crime and must be reported to the police, who must determine whether there is enough evidence to charge the perpetrator. She noted that in some cases, advice may need to be sought from the Director of Public Prosecutions.
“So those matters cannot be dealt with at the station level there must be thorough investigation for charges to be made, because a crime has been committed. For physical abuse, if it’s not a serious form of abuse we can work with the parent if they are willing to cooperate. If a child is regularly beaten and we’re working with the parent and it’s not being stopped, yes we should execute charges to the parent, so we can hold him or her accountable to get that parent to sit and work with us so that they can correct how they deal with their children,” Greene stated.
