-in bid to arrest prevalence of child abuse in Region 10

WITH Region 10 rated as the region with the highest incidence of child abuse for 2017, Director of Child Services Ann Greene told this publication that the government is already putting systems in place to address this development.

Greene told the Guyana Chronicle that what is even more disturbing is that of the entire region Linden has proven to have the most recorded cases of child abuse, with neglect being the most prevalent, followed by sexual abuse.
Greene said that the findings have come in very useful, as they will help pave the way for instituting measures to tackle this social ill.
“It helps us in our programme planning,” she said, adding: “We will be looking at Linden and how we can better things.”

One of the factors that were deemed most responsible for the abuse, she said, was poverty. And given that Linden is indeed not doing well economically, and plagued by high unemployment, this might very well be the case.
“We got to look at the low-income groups,” Greene said, adding that there may very well be situations where single-mothers seeking employment have no alternative but to leave their children with caregivers whose character may be questionable.
There is also the issue of irresponsible parenting, Greene said, particularly among those parents who lack the intellectual capacity to parent responsibly.

Over the years, statistics have shown that Region 10 is the one with the highest rate of teenage pregnancy, a development which prompted the Linden Hospital Complex to initiate a teenage pregnancy clinic to give specialised care to these young mothers. Parental substance abuse and domestic abuse were also listed as other factors contributing to child abuse in Linden.

Greene said that one aspect of the work set out in Linden is to continue raising the level of child abuse awareness so that more reports of abuse will be made.
She said that because awareness was given priority in recent years, there has been an increase in the number of people coming forward to report instances of abuse, but unfortunately, that is not enough.
“The reported cases are just the tip of the iceberg,” she said, adding:
“Child abuse is done behind closed doors, and when you raise the level of awareness, you will have more reports.”

For 2017, the CPA recorded a total of 4,179 cases of child abuse. Of the lot, Region 10 reflected a 22.1 per cent per every 1,000 children.
“In every thousand children, 15 are being abused. If you look at last year’s stats data, it also means that every two hours, a child is abused; every day, 11 children are abused,” Greene explained.