Tackling child abuse

Feb 18, 2025 Editorial, News

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Editorial…

Kaieteur News- Guyana recorded some 4,032 cases of child abuse in 2024 and 275 cases so far for this year. These are astonishing numbers, which require every effort by both the government and the rest of society to address this situation. At a news conference on Saturday by the Ministry of Human Services, it was disclosed that of the over 4000 abuse cases, the Childcare and Protection Agency (CCPA) recorded 1,203 child sexual cases in 2024, with Region Four recording 466 cases; Region One 52; 181 in Region Two, 145 in Region Three and 83 in Region Five. In Regions Six and Ten, 148 and 48 cases were reported respectively. The lowest numbers were recorded in Regions Seven, Eight, and Nine. Region Seven reported 10 cases, Region Eight 21, and Region Nine 50 cases.

It is universally accepted that every child has a right to be considered of equal intrinsic worth and hence entitled to equal socio-economic, civil and political rights so that he/she may realize his potential and share in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A working definition of child abuse may be any act of omission or commission that endangers or impairs a child’s psychological physical health and development judged on the basis of a combination of community standards and professional expertise. It may be committed by individuals, individually or collectively, who by their age, status, knowledge etc. are in positions of differential power that render a child vulnerable.
Of the types of child abuse, physical abuse consists of any non-accidental form of injury or harm inflicted on a child by a person, which includes beating, burning or wounding. Physical abuse is common in our society where corporal punishment as slapping etc. is considered the norm. However, corporal punishment that injures the child to the point where medical attention is required is a form of physical abuse outside the limits of normal corrective discipline. It is sometimes difficult for even doctors to determine whether a child who is brought in to a hospital is the victim of an accident or whether the injury has been caused by physical abuse. It is therefore imperative for doctors to place importance on this task and be able to differentiate between accidents and abuse.

It is often said that 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 adults. 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.

Then there is sexual abuse– any sexual act with a child performed by an adult or by another child – also appears to abound in Guyana. Females appear to bear the brunt of this type of abuse – some suggest that some fifty percent of women in our society may have been abused when they were children. But recent reports have exposed the fact that boys are also at risk.
While all sexual abuse of children are heinous, incest – sexual activity between individuals related by blood – reportedly cause the greatest and most long lasting trauma in children. Ironically it may be the most common type of sexual abuse of children on account of the opportunities presented because of the sexual predator being, “family”. One of the most despicable abuses against children has been their sexual violation by adults. 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 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, because although the numbers presented are very high, we believe that hundreds of other cases have gone unreported.

(Tackling child abuse)

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• child sexual cases, Childcare and Protection Agency, Editorial, Guyana, Region Seven

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