According to the latest statistics released by the Department of Social Services, Children and Family Services Division; between January and June of 2006 there were 49 reported cases of sexual abuse of children, compared to the 41 cases reported last year, representing a 19.5 per cent increase.
“This is disturbing,” said one social worker who spoke to the Nassau Guardian on condition of anonymity. Speaking of her experiences, she said: “Each year it gets worse for me. You would be amazed to know the conditions we sometimes find these children in,” she said. “It’s heart-wrenching.”
The 2005 figures relating to the different forms of abuse of children, from January to June, show there were 100 reported cases of physical abuse, 22 cases of incest, five cases of verbal abuse and three cases of child abandonment.
This year, over the same time period, there were 67 reported cases of physical abuse, nine cases of incest, two cases of verbal abuse and four cases of child abandonment.
President of Bahamian Fathers for Children Everywhere, Clever Duncombe, described the statistics as “startling.”
He believes the government needs to create a Social and National Development Plan in a bid to deal with the “horrific acts” that are being perpetrated on the “nation’s darlings.”
“We believe fundamentally by not having (a plan), you would see these numbers each year increase. When I look at the total number (of abuse) it is totally unacceptable and I honestly believe that there is no more room in society to condone this type of deviant behaviour that is being perpetrated on our children,” Mr Duncombe told the Guardian.
“It seems as if it is just an open door policy where you can perpetrate any evil to whatever extent it is on our children and you would only get a slap on the wrist.”
Mr Duncombe believes if the laws were “tougher and given more teeth” there would be a significant reduction in child abuse, whether neglect, physical or sexual.
“We need legislators now to look seriously at putting our social issues to the fore. When you look at our social policies, many of them are outdated and it does not address the reality of what is happening in our modernised Bahamas today,” Mr Duncombe claimed.
And even though there were 15 reported cases of incest in 2005, Mr Duncombe maintained that number is definitely higher.
“I know definitely that the numbers should be higher than that and even when you look at statistics as it relates to pregnancy and live births over the last 11 years, you would have had some 137 children between the ages of 10 and 14 who would have given birth, in some instances twice,” he said.
Mr Duncombe said the reality is there are some Bahamian children who are suffering from abuse.
In 1999, then Housing and Social Development Minister Algernon Allen called for child abusers to be publicly exposed.
“The pervasiveness and debilitating effects of this social disease are so great that we must determine that no matter how close the blood ties, how great the remorse, or how high and mighty the offender, the law must take its lawful course and retribution must be swift, sure, severe and public,” he said.
By KEVA LIGHTBOURNE Guardian Senior Reporter
