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World Child Abuse Prevention Day

Nov 16, 2009 Editorial

This Thursday, November 19th, is World Child Abuse Prevention Day. It is a rather pathetic fact of our so-called modern and “enlightened” and “civilised” age millions of children are being abused in one form or another, every day in the world.

It is pathetic because while we rail at the legion of injustices that besiege us the adults at every step of our own lives, we inflict rampant injustices with nary a thought on our children, who are supposed to be our hope for a kinder, gentler future. Are we surprised that abused children will become abusive parents and ensure that the vicious cycle continues to revolve?

The abuse of children begins when we start thinking of them as our property, and no matter how we may try to sublimate or repress it, this thought lingers in the minds of most parents. What else can justify the animalistic rage that fuels the beatings that are inflicted on children for various and sundry violations of arbitrary and never coherently stated “rules”?

Is it really “for the children’s good” or is it for the perceived indignity of having our rules not observed? This is the same relationship that was legalised as “slavery” – characterised by its elaborate and intricate forms of punishment and discipline – which is now universally decry.

The World Child Abuse Prevention Day, initiated by the Women’s World Summit Foundation (WWSF) in 2000, aims to create a culture of prevention around the world by encouraging governments and community/society organisations to play more active roles in protecting children. In Guyana, we have been very slow in accepting the “rights of the child”, notwithstanding the existence of an organisation with that name, and continue to treat children as property. We would like to challenge the various organisations that have risen above our prejudices and taken up cudgels on behalf of abused children to come together this Thursday and organise country-wide events to highlight the need for action in this neglected area.

One of the most despicable abuses against children has been their sexual violation by adults. The recent alleged tape of a high official soliciting sex from a child encapsulated much of the pathology of this depraved and sick activity: the violation of trust by someone in a position of authority; the identification of children from broken homes in need of emotional sustenance; the grooming by making the abuse seem “innocuous” and “normal”; the bribery with gifts; the blaming of the child for not fulfilling the emotional and sexual needs of the adult, etc.

In almost every case, these children become emotionally scarred for life and have, at a minimum, grave difficulties in forming stable relationships – especially sexual ones – when they become adults.

They will either display heightened promiscuity because their early sexualisation predisposes them to see sex as the only way to relate to others intimately or they may react to that early sexualisation by rejecting sex – since it was connected with a violation. Issues of trust and guilt bedevil these unfortunate children as they mature and make emotional and sexual intimacy always problematic.

In several editorials we have warned against the belief, prevalent in our midst, that child abuse in general and sexual abuse of children in particular is not prevalent in our society.

In most countries of the world where surveys have been conducted, the percentage of individuals that reported sexual abuse at one time or the other in their lives invariably top the 50 percent mark. This should be a frightening statistic and our Ministry of Social Services should conduct a survey with the greatest urgency to discern the extent of the problem here.

We have several pieces of legislation that impinge of the issue of sexual abuse of children stuck in the maws of Parliament for one reason or another. We are coming out with this editorial early enough that the organisations concerned with the welfare of children could stage a joint protest this Thursday in front of Parliament at their dithering on the issue. We call on citizens to support such an action; for the sake of our children and our future.

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