Child abuse and little support

Feb 04, 2010 Editorial

Guyana has placed much emphasis on the rights of children and spouses. It has enacted legislation that allows for stricter penalties for those convicted and in some cases, it makes testifying just that bit easier for the victim.
But there is more to the legislation. There needs to be enforcement something which is sadly lacking in most cases. The result is that the abuses continue, sometimes with heightened intensity.
Just this past week one newspaper carried a story of a three-year-old who was so badly beaten that he probably could not see out his eyes for days.
The swelling on the face of that child is testimony to severe head injuries.
For a three-year-old to suffer such abuse is beyond imagination; for the relatives to get away with such an atrocity until someone suffered a change of heart, is unimaginable.
People had to hear the child crying out for help until it was probably knocked unconscious but one appeared to intervene.
Then we hear that two relatives are in custody. The law states that no one should be detained by the police for more than 72 hours unless there is an order of court.
More than 72 hours have elapsed but no one has been charged. These people may be released into the community again, most likely to continue their abuses.
The issue is about protecting children, in this case a three-year-old. There should be no delay in getting the abusers to justice. Opinion is divided on corporal punishment but what happened to the child went beyond corporal punishment.
Guyana is experimenting with shelter for abused children, a costly exercise given that trained people are needed to manage such shelters.
Meanwhile, with the kind of society it is, Guyana has some of the more closely knit families in the world—most of them extended families. Perhaps the focus should be on supporting those family members that reach out to assist abused children.
Last year, the new head of the Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association, Beverley Braithwaite-Chan, recognized the need for emphasis to be placed on parents who seemed to have lost the art of parenting.
She said that some focus would be placed on training the parents and we can only conclude that this cannot be done soon enough.
People complain of economic hardship but parents of old had equally financially challenging times. They, however, had the support of the extended family which eased the pressure to the extent that there was no need for the levels of brutality that occurs today.
In fact, the entire community was responsible for rearing the child. In those days there was no need for the kind of social services that we seem to demand today, given the inability of people to even communicate with children.
It is this lack of communication that sparks the violence and has caused the state to take note and some action.
However, whatever action is being taken is not being done fast enough.
Even the police are slow to take action. Perhaps that is why it was some time before the people who brutalized the three-year-old to be taken into custody.
But that is not the only case. We recently had a mentally woman who hurled her baby into a canal and killed it; there have been mothers who poisoned their children and fathers who did drastic things to their children. Some even mutilated their children.
Some countries insist that people advertise their propensity for abusing children. It may be time for Guyana to consider this course of action.

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