AB– USE and violence against children featured heavily this week as the country observed “Child Week”, which ended yesterday. However, the size of this problem is bigger than reports indicate because of the cloak of silence that hangs over it.
Elizabeth Lewis, Director of Human Services here pointed to this “cloak of silence” as one of the greater hindrances for her department in its investigation of child abuse, especially child sexual abuse and neglect in the country.
“One of the greater hindrances for us is that usually the abuse is perpetrated by persons whom the children know and people whom they trust and so there’s always the issue of remaining quiet, not speaking out…so there’s an issue of silence, a cloak of silence that surrounds child abuse in Saint Lucia,” Lewis said.
The Director was attending a workshop for Early Childhood Educators on Child Abuse at the Coco Palm Conference room when she made her comments.
Child abuse, especially sexual abuse and neglect have been problems of concern for the Human Services Department and other authoritative bodies for several years.
The tip of the iceberg was scratched last month when police ruled that the death of a four year old from Grande Ravine, Dennery, Milan Ferdinand who allegedly was beaten at home, was a homicide. He died as a result of “severe brain damage and head injury due to blunt force trauma”, a police statement said after a post examination of the body.
Police also said that there were multiple blunt force traumas all over Ferdinand’s body. The boy was in the care of his father and stepmother at the time of his death. Both of them have been arrested.
Another four year old child from Collie Town was physically abused by his father and ended in hospital Lewis and Health Minister, Alvina Reynolds both denounced the acts with the Minister calling the situation” evil” and “sad” that children of that age could be abused in the name of punishment and discipline.
“It speaks to many, many things, poor parenting skills, persons who do not know how to nurture children. But more than that it speaks to, I think, evil in some cases because children are so vulnerable, children can’t harm anybody,” she said.
Incidents of child sexual abuse in particular have continued to grow even as the authorities implement measures to curb it, according to a police report last month that gave figures for rape, unlawful sexual connection, sexual intercourse with a person under 12 years and sexual intercourse with a person between the ages of 12 and 16.
Lewis admits that this cloak of silence that hangs over the country “creates a situation where we cannot get to really deal with it (child sexual abuse) in the most appropriate way.”
But she takes heart in that despite the tightness of the cloak of silence the country is wrapped in, there are people who speak out against child abuse.
“We have seen a lot more people who have become aware. Persons are calling in and that is heart-warming for us in that as much as we have a lot more work to do with the increase in the number of reports, people are looking out, recognizing the signs and they are prepared to take action,” Lewis said.
