– director, Childcare and Protection Agency

CHILD abuse is a ‘hidden crime’ which is done behind closed doors and many times goes unreported.

“It is very much hidden because children are resilient, they suffer in silence,” said Director of the Childcare and Protection Agency (CPA) Ann Greene, during an exclusive interview with the Guyana Chronicle.

Child abuse is when a parent or caregiver, whether through action or failing to act, causes injury, death, emotional harm or risk of serious harm to a child. There are many forms of child maltreatment, including neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, exploitation and emotional abuse.

It is believed that 90 per cent of the cases of child abuse do not meet the authorities because many times, children who are abused, do not have a voice to tell of their ordeal.
“Some do not even know they are being abused and some of them would keep secrets rather than tell someone,” said Greene.

Most cases go unreported, yet from January to May, 2019, there have been 1,902 local cases of child abuse.

According to a breakdown of the statistics from the CPA, 1,015 of the cases were girls, while 887 were boys who have been abused.
The highest number of cases was child neglect, which totalled 865, of which 402 were girls and 463 were boys.
According to Greene, when it comes to neglect, officers have to do a balancing act to see if it is actually neglect or deprivation.
Poverty is a factor which creates vulnerability in children, so officers have to know if it is wilful neglect or deprivation.
“If people are poor we do not criminalise poverty… if people are poor we have to carry services to the people, we do not take a child because people are poor. A lot of people are poor but still look at their children,” said Greene, adding that they try to assist those people in any way possible.

NEGLECT
Neglect, however, remains a serious issue, but following behind that is sexual abuse. From January to May, there were 492 cases of sexual abuse, with 387 involving girls and 105 boys.
‘Greene said the figures show an increase in the number of boys who have been sexually abused. Reports show that this form of abuse is seldom reported.
“Children rather suffer in silence… these children cannot tell of abuse, it is so hard, particularly with sexual abuse… to tell that a loved one is sexually abusing you is difficult,” said Greene.

Another form of abuse which children find hard to report is physical abuse, which affected 408 children within the stated period.

Statistics show that in most of the cases, of all forms of abuse, mothers were the main perpetrator. The main perpetrators were mothers, fathers and step-parents.
Children are often told to stay away from strangers but according to Greene, abuse from a stranger is rare. Children are abused by people whom they love and trust.
“Most of the hurt they receive is in the home… the people who are convicted are most times people who the victims trust and love,” said the CPA director, adding that children hardly ever fully recover from abuse; they have secret pains.
Greene encouraged persons to take child protection more seriously, noting that child protection is not just the mandate of the CPA.

EVERYONE’S BUSINESS
She believes that child protection is everyone’s business and it starts in the home. A home should be a safe place for a child, but homes are proving not to be safe places for children, considering the perpetrators who were listed.

“Parents have to start protecting their children… schools also have a role to play, teachers are the front-runners when it comes to spotting abuse… a child’s wake hours are spent in the school system, so teachers should be able to spot abuse,” said Greene.
In addition, she said persons need to work towards making communities child-friendly and caring, because persons in the community know who is who and what is happening.
The CPA director said long gone are the days when persons should go to bed knowing that there is a child next door with no one to care for them or anything to eat. Greene deeply believes that there is a role for the community in stopping abuse.
“When you hear a noise next door people lock up their house tighter, but when it comes to children, you need to find out what it is,” she urged.

The CPA has been conducting a lot of sensitisation exercises and programmes to make communities more aware of abuse.

The agency sought to do partnership development by partnering with religious organisations and non-governmental organisations in certain communities.
“We are building partnership development because what we are hoping to do is with the state systems; we want to attach the state child protection systems to be linked with community systems… we know of a child being abused here when somebody tells us, if you do not tell us we will never know,” she said.
The people who have to report cases of abuse are families, teachers and residents of the community.

Last year it was reported that there was a growing number of reported child abuse cases in Guyana and for 2018, over 4,900 such cases were recorded, an alarming number that was fuelled by neglect and other social-ills.