DIRECTOR of the Child Care and Protection Agency (CCPA), Ms. Ann Greene has said the sadism of child abuse takes on a malicious form when the victims are unable to recognise the injustice.

In a recent interview with the Guyana Chronicle, she said the biggest threat to the institution becomes reality when offenders feed on this vulnerability and groom the child for the abuse.
Greene declared she is sickened that, after the entire emotional and physical trauma put on those children’s shoulders, they are being further stigmatised as “no goods” “them like it” and “them encourage it.”
But the harsh reality that most people do not want to face is that those children did not ask to be raped, sexually molested, abandoned or battered.
They were simply in the wrong place, the wrong home and taught to believe that abuse was the norm.
“Those that were sexually abused are not consumed with sex, they were groomed. It’s a comfort and they want to be where they are comfortable,” Greene offered.
She said their removal from the abusive perpetrator disturbs the child, disrupts the norm and, in most cases, the latter would respond negatively.
Their emotions
“They act out. They vent their emotions. And they do what they were taught to do. I have never found a bad child. I have found children who have had bad things happen to them,” Greene maintained.
There were 4,102 reported cases of child abuse in this country last year, 742 subjected to it sexually and 729 physically while 1,547 were abandoned by their parents and 879 taken into custody.
Greene said most children tend to blame themselves for parental abandonment and take responsibility for being sexually abused.
“They don’t know they are abused,” she said, noting that those children are more likely to go into adulthood with a lot of pain and anger issues.
Consequently, Greene acknowledged that it is the job of the CCPA to create an environment of healing.
“We have to build their self-esteem because, when they come to us it’s on the ground floor. We have to tell them it’s not their fault. They did nothing wrong…that not everyone in the world is evil,” she pointed out.
Greene said putting the children in homes is, usually, the last option and happens if there is no immediate relative willing to take the child.
Stable place
She said that is the reason why the agency has developed the Foster Care Programme to ensure every one of them has a stable place to call home.
Greene observed that most children want to return to the abusive home and, when they tell her so, she would ask them:”Where is home? What is home?”
She said, since the launch of the ‘TELL’ campaign, the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security has seen a lot of children coming forward with their stories.
“Almost every time a teacher does the TELL Campaign with a class, a child speaks out,” Greene reported.
The programme was started last November.
Another programme, titled ‘Children at Risk’ is seeking to provide psycho-social support to families with those who were abuse victims.
Abuse takes different forms, with the victims being battered physically, emotionally and sexually. The majority of them are neglected by their parents whilst some are exploited by the perpetrators, Greene confirmed.