By: Amar Persaud
Of the 2,799 cases of child abuse recorded for the period January to September 2021, majority of them were committed by mothers.
This is according to information provided by the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security which is headed by Dr Vindhya Persaud.
Sexual, physical abuse
According to the information provided to INews, there were 1,130 cases of abuse against boys and 1,669 cases against girls, ranging from sexual, physical as well as instances of neglect.
When it comes to physical abuse, a breakdown shows that there were 83 cases for boys aged 0-3, 95 cases for boys aged 4-7, 139 cases for boys aged 8-13, and 49 cases for boys aged 14-18.
For girls who suffered from physical abuse, there were 45 cases for those aged 0-3, 66 cases for those aged 4-7, 91 cases for those aged 8-13, and 63 cases for those abused from 14-18.
For sexual abuse against boys, there were 15 cases for those aged 0-3, 25 cases for those aged 4-7, 50 cases for those aged 8-13, and 32 cases for those aged 14-18. For sexual abuse against girls, there were 18 cases for those aged 0-3, 56 for cases for those aged 4-7, 240 cases for those aged 8-13, and 410 cases for those aged 14-18.
Regarding case of neglect, for the age category of 0-3, there were 167 cases recorded for boys and 156 cases for girl; for the 4-7 age category, there were 158 cases for boys and 143 for girls; for the 8-13 category, there were 174 cases for boys and 200 for girls; and for the 14-18 category, there were 44 cases for boys and 54 for girls.
Other cases of child abuse included verbal abuse which saw a total of 197 cases, abandonment with a total of seven cases, and children who witnessed abuse with 22 total cases.
Perpetrators of abuse
In these cases, most of the abusers were mothers, representing 1,026 cases.
Fathers were recorded as the second highest perpetrators of abuse against children, with 515 cases recorded. Further, there were 171 cases where stepparents perpetrated the abuse, 65 cases where the abuse was executed by grandparents, 26 cases where siblings were responsible for the abuse, 111 cases where other relatives were guilty of abusing children, and 17 cases of guardians being the abusers.
According to the Ministry’s records, there are also 55 cases where the abusers are unknown and 485 cases where the abusers are listed at “other perpetrators”.
Intervention
Interventions made by the Ministry and other relevant agencies resulted in 1,499 of these cases being provided with counselling, 653 were dealt with by the police, 71 were processed in the courts, and 33 resulted in “removal and placement”.
As a result, there are a total of 101 that were referred to children’s homes including foster care.
914 Helpline
Dr Persaud, during a recent interview with this publication, also disclosed that government’s 914 domestic violence helpline saw 15% of the 511 calls made since its establishment being cases related to child abuse.
Notwithstanding the 1500 prank calls made to the helpline from December 2020 to now, she noted that the 914 domestic violence hotline is proving successful and she encouraged persons to continue using it for its real purpose.
“I want to appeal to parents to teach your children about 914 but also teach them about the seriousness of the hotline and that if children are calling, we want to hear from those children but we want to utilise the hotline for the purpose it was intended,” the Human Services Minister explained.
In addition to the hotline, Dr Persaud noted that her Ministry is working closely with the Guyana Police Force (GPF) to better train cops to deal with these sensitive cases.
“To date, we would’ve trained 75 officers at various levels and from various stations from across the country with the intention of training the entire Force by mid-June, which would be over 4000 officers,” she pointed out.
This training is called COPSQUAD2000.
Another interesting revelation made by the Minister is the increase of reports of violence being made by males.
“One thing that has remained constant is that the numbers of person affected by violence and abuse still remain solidly women and girls. What we would’ve seen is more reporting from men and boys compared to the years before,” she explained.
