Bring down this power

The lead story in Friday’s Newsday, “Man cries rape”, related the attempted rape of a young man by male occupants of a PH taxi, plus two instances of women in San Fernando being raped after entering similar vehicles.

Last Thursday, Newsday’s report of the Police Service weekly briefing cited Child Protection Unit (CPU) data in a story titled, “3,000 child sex abuse cases in eight months” or 100 instances each week.

These are alarming figures.

Shockingly, the victims include 236 infants under age five. What in God’s name is going on in our country, we ask? Anyone reading these figures would try to seek solace by reasoning that this is abnormal behaviour carried out by perpetrators in an anti-social minority. Yet this occurrence of 400 cases of serious sexual offences each month suggests to us an even worse scenario. We ask, does TT have a rape culture? Beneath this country’s easy-going veneer, it seems some persons regard others with gross inconsideration verging on callousness and a sense of entitlement or even proprietorship and power over the bodies of those seen as weaker.

While family-life has been seen as a bulwark against this country’s current social degeneration as measured by an increasing number of murders, the tragic irony of child sexual abuse is that it is mostly carried out by family members who have ready access to their victims, according to the CPU.

If an abuser is the provider for the child-victim and his or her family, sadly this may deter a mother from confronting the harsh reality of such abuse, thereby complicating any resolution or prosecution of this crime. We also ponder the problem of where to relocate children rescued from abuse within their family, as the country’s children’s homes themselves may harbour sexual abusers.

We also wonder how many instances of sexual abuse remain unreported, in cases of the mother or child being afraid or reluctant.

Further, in noting the difference between reported and unreported cases, are we to abhor a year by year increase in reports as indicative of a greater prevalence of these crimes actually occurring, or do we assume the prevalence remains constant over the years and therefore we welcome a greater reporting of crimes that have always existed? We also note how much worse the CPU figures of 3,000 cases are from the already alarming 900 cases reported to the Children’s Authority during May 2015 to February 2016, cited last April.

While this country has eight Acts specific to the protection of children’s welfare - including the Children’s Act, Children’s Authority Act and Children’s Community Residences Act - the fact of 3,000 instances of sexual abuse clearly shows that legislation alone is inadequate especially if unenforced.

We suggest children must be taught about “good touch/bad touch”, with the basic advice that if they feel uncomfortable they must report their woes to a trusted adult.

Other tips to safeguard children are posted on the Children’s Authority website. Secondly parents and teachers must stay vigilant to the child displaying signs of anger, withdrawal and the like that may signal sexual abuse. Thirdly, the authorities should mull the establishment of a sexual offenders’ register with head-shots that could be accessed and viewed by an “app” on a mobile- phone before a woman, child or man sets foot inside any vehicle.

Fourthly, this society needs a discussion on masculinity, a crisis of which child sexual-abuse is but one manifestation. This is all the moreso given the fact that an act of rape is said not to be about sex, but about power or control.

This cannot continue. It is one power that needs to be brought down, and quickly.