The data on child abuse recently released by the Childcare and Protection Agency revealed that for last year, 3,129 reports were made. While that figure is abhorrently high, those were the lowest number of reports made over the last three years. In 2019, 3,752 cases of abuse against children were reported as of the end of October that year. In 2018, the reported cases were a staggering 4,368 and in 2017, that figure was 3,470.
Considering that many of 2020’s reports were made, investigated, and some of them resolved during the election upheaval and in the midst of a pandemic, the Childcare and Protection Agency and its non-government partners are deserving of, at the very least, heartfelt thanks. However, for the same reason, there are pertinent concerns that there could very well have been far more cases than the ones reported. One hopes, therefore, that increased resources are being/have been made available to the agency this year.
Minister of Human Services and Social Security Dr Vindhya Persaud was quoted in a press release as saying she was “horrified” and “deeply” disturbed by last year’s statistics. She also admonished mothers, who, according to a post on her ministry’s Facebook page, “may be driven by economic hardship and financial opportunism to ‘be very careful of the persons that you let into your homes. You are exposing your children to the unknown, and you’re placing your children sometimes in harm’s way. Be very conscious of your child’s whereabouts and with whom you leave your child…’” This seemed to be a particularly knee-jerk response to the section of the data which revealed that 41 percent of girls between the ages of 14 and 18 were sexually abused at home, without taking cognisance of the fact that in quite a few cases, the abuser already lived in the home and was a parent, or other relative.
Incidentally, a glaring statistic from the report was that mothers were the perpetrators in 1,189 (just over a third) of the 3,129 cases of abuse reported. This is nothing new, a similar situation existed in 2019 and a look at the 2018 statistics would likely reveal much of the same. It is troubling, isn’t it, that in this age of enlightenment children are still subjected to physical and verbal abuse, neglect and abandonment at their mother’s hands? Indeed, it is. But it is perhaps not entirely surprising when there are indications that many of these women are themselves trapped in a cycle of abuse. Just a glance at the domestic violence statistics for 2020, whenever these are made available, would give a clear idea as to the correlation between the two areas. To even suggest, therefore, that women are placing their children in harm’s way for the sake of ‘financial opportunism’, unless there is concrete evidence to back such an implication, is nothing short of victim blaming. If officialdom is to make any headway in turning the tide against both of these scourges, it would perhaps be helpful not to make or sign off on irresponsible comments that could result in women not coming forward to seek the help that is available to them.
Last year’s statistics are certainly horrifying and deeply disturbing, but no less so than those in the previous three years. And the issue was equally horrendous when Head of the Childcare and Protection Agency Ann Greene revealed that in 2011, the agency had responded to “over 3,000 sexual abuse reports…, the bulk of which originated in Region Four”.
Nor does child abuse only occur in the home. After years of whispers about mistreatment at the New Opportunity Corps (NOC), including a serious allegation of sexual abuse made by a teenage girl, the facility that was supposed to be catering to the rehabilitation of children at odds with the law, had erupted in 2012. There was a mass breakout during which fires were lit. An investigation followed, but not much was changed as regards the treatment of the residents of the institution.
In 2014, following another escape, several of the residents of NOC made allegations of physical and sexual abuse against the authorities there. Dr Frank Anthony, then minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, and whose ministry had responsibility for the NOC, had denied that there was any wrongdoing on the part of his staff but said they would cooperate with an investigation. This was initiated by the Childcare and Protection Agency, which first obtained a court order to remove the girls who had made the allegation to protective custody.
That same year, five more children were moved to protective custody from the Berbice Anjuman Orphanage after a runaway boy made allegations of sexual abuse there.
Furthermore, in 2012 a Muslim scholar at the Turkeyen Masjid was charged with raping nine underage boys between December 2011 and January 2012. He was later suspended by the Central Islamic Organisation of Guyana. It was not until 2019, after agonising delays, complaints of intimidation and accusations of interference by authority figures, during which key documents in the case went missing and two of the mothers were reportedly offered settlements of $6 million and $8 million to withdraw the matter, that the man, Nezaam Ali, was found guilty on completion of the first case. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison and has since appealed his conviction and sentence.
To be clear, a culture of abuse exists in Guyana. Women and children, who are in some instances viewed as property rather than as individuals with rights, often bear the brunt of it. But blame for annual statistics of over 3,000 cases of child abuse must be placed squarely at the feet of the perpetrators. Child abuse, all forms of it, is unacceptable whether there are 3,000 or just one case. It is also preventable, but it will only begin to end when there is true zero tolerance for this scourge regardless of who the offenders are or their place in society.
