Children’s Authority: No change in number of nationwide child abuse allegations

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

The num­ber of child abuse al­le­ga­tions na­tion­wide on a month­ly ba­sis has re­mained gen­er­al­ly con­sis­tent, ac­cord­ing to of­fi­cials in the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty, as they stress the need for a so­ci­etal ap­proach to pro­tect­ing chil­dren.

The da­ta was re­vealed dur­ing a sit­ting of a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) on Hu­man Rights, Equal­i­ty and Di­ver­si­ty on Fri­day, which fea­tured of­fi­cials from the Au­thor­i­ty along­side coun­ter­parts in the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from com­mit­tee mem­ber Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der, gen­er­al man­ag­er of Child Wel­fare Ser­vices, Rhon­da Gre­goire-Roopc­hand, said there has been a re­duc­tion in the num­ber of al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing child abuse na­tion­wide.

“The num­ber of re­ports com­ing to the au­thor­i­ty is, on av­er­age, as of this month, 411 calls ... based on al­le­ga­tions of abuse. Cer­tain­ly, that speaks to the need for an en­tire com­mu­ni­ty to re­or­gan­ise and read­dress how we treat our chil­dren.

“There is a need for change, and we are will­ing to do our part and col­lab­o­rate with our col­leagues.”

In No­vem­ber 2022, Gre­goire-Roopc­hand, then the deputy di­rec­tor of Care Ser­vices, was quot­ed as say­ing that the au­thor­i­ty re­ceived 400 re­ports of child abuse each month, at the time.

Man­ag­er of the Place­ment, Li­cens­ing and Mon­i­tor­ing Unit at the au­thor­i­ty, Chan­drakala Sook­nanan, fur­ther re­port­ed that there was a slight de­crease in the num­ber of child abuse re­ports re­ceived, specif­i­cal­ly from chil­dren’s homes, with 16 re­ports re­ceived in fis­cal 2023 to 2024 ver­sus ten re­ports be­ing re­ceived for the fol­low­ing fis­cal year.

Sook­nanan said while the da­ta is still be­ing mon­i­tored, the de­cline may be part­ly due to the au­thor­i­ty’s stan­dards be­ing ap­plied to these homes.

De­spite this dip, con­cerns over the re­port­ing mech­a­nisms for chil­dren who may be fac­ing abuse at homes were raised by com­mit­tee mem­ber and Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Do­minic Smith, who point­ed to the need for ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion be­tween re­ceiv­ing a re­port and ini­ti­at­ing a re­sponse or site vis­it to the home, where the in­ci­dent re­port­ed­ly took place.

Not­ing that while the chil­dren’s au­thor­i­ty con­duct­ed vis­its to homes at least once a month, where the wel­fare of chil­dren was as­sessed, Smith al­so ques­tioned what mech­a­nisms were in place to en­sure that chil­dren in the cus­tody of these homes were com­fort­able enough to re­port if they ex­pe­ri­enced any abuse, with­out fear of reprisal.

In her re­sponse, Gre­goire-Roopc­hand ac­knowl­edged that while the sys­tem was not per­fect, there were arrange­ments in place to pro­vide a sense of com­fort for chil­dren to be hon­est and open about the kind of ex­pe­ri­ences they have had at homes.

She added that ques­tions over wel­fare are al­so posed to chil­dren dur­ing ther­a­peu­tic ses­sions.

Com­mit­tee chair­man Ernesto Ke­sar, in clos­ing, re­mind­ed the stake­hold­ers that while they may have been re­ceiv­ing point­ed ques­tions to bet­ter un­der­stand the sit­u­a­tion at Chil­dren’s Homes, it was done to en­sure that the stan­dards of care were be­ing up­held, es­pe­cial­ly with the wel­fare of chil­dren in mind.

Ke­sar not­ed that be­cause of this in­ten­si­fied fo­cus on re­duc­ing cas­es of child abuse, that rec­om­men­da­tions and re­spons­es be­ing sought from the au­thor­i­ty and oth­er stake­hold­ers would be placed on a tighter time­line.

He said the se­ri­ous tone of the sit­ting re­flect­ed the gov­ern­ment’s se­ri­ous ap­proach to pre­vent­ing child abuse.

“I can­not stop un­der­scor­ing the fact that this mat­ter of child abuse in Chil­dren’s Homes must come to an end and apart from the de­sire of the en­tire gov­ern­ment, as echoed by our Prime Min­is­ter where she has a very par­tic­u­lar favour for chil­dren, I want to say we will do all that we have to do to en­sure these rec­om­men­da­tions are im­ple­ment­ed.”