The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

AFTER Minister of Social Services Frankie Campbell released the latest child abuse statistics, one local advocate said more must be done to look at the root cause of abuse in Bahamian society.

On Wednesday, Mr Campbell said there were 382 reported cases of child abuse from January 2020 to February of this year.

When contacted for reaction, Bahamas Crisis Centre director Dr Sandra Dean-Patterson said while she had not seen the statistics, high rates of abuse against children have been an issue for some time.

“(The rates of abuse) it’s been high,” she said. “It’s been very worrying. That’s why we keep making noise about it. That’s why we keep raising awareness to it. That’s how children learn violence really by being exposed to it and that’s how you can have so much (trauma) in our country...”

She commended the government for passing a law that mandated people who suspect that a child is being abused to report it to authorities. Dr Dean-Patterson believes this has resulted in more people reporting abuse.

Still, she said more must be done to determine which issues — such as poverty and lack of child support — are contributing to the social ill.

“We still have a very dysfunctional system of child support and I know that we’ve been talking about improving the family court system because that to me, that’s the earliest intervention where you can make sure that families are supported. Financially supported and not put in positions where children go hungry or children end up being the victims of the anger or the violence in their parents.”

As for the pandemic possibly contributing to the child abuse problem, she responded: “We haven’t done any research on it but it wouldn’t be surprising to know that abuse is higher during this period when people are not working. When people are very stressed. When people are homeless and people are living in their cars and not being able to do what they used to do with their children.

“Then of course you know the fact the children are having to work from home and you know do online learning and if you’re a parent that doesn’t have the resources and you haven’t been fortunate enough to get a tablet for your children or may not even have electricity in your house.

“You know there’s lots and lots of stressors in the country and if parents don’t know how to deal with their stress and not aware of how the stress could be causing them to react poorly with their children then you would see the numbers increase and the isolation that a lot of families are experiencing now.”