Munro-Knight: Gov’t ‘doing better’ for children with new Bill

inister in the Prime Minister’s Office with responsibility for culture, Senator Dr Shantal Munro-Knight, has expressed concern that there are times in Barbadian households where discipline crosses over into physical abuse.

Leading off debate in the Senate on Wednesday on the Child Protection Bill, 2024 following the submission of an 800-page report by a Joint Select Committee, she conceded that many people turn a blind eye to cases of abuse when they occurred in domestic settings.

She said this was linked to the fact that the society, from its colonial slave days, was built on violence. However, Senator Munro-Knight told the Upper House that Barbadians were living in “a different society” in which people know better.

She admonished citizens that “if we know better, we should do better” when it came to the way children are raised and disciplined.

The minister contended that the idea that children should be “seen and not heard will not serve us well as a society”.

In her contribution to the debate, Senator Munro-Knight highlighted the fact that most cases of abuse in Barbados involved neglect of children.

In those circumstances, she cited the declining role of next-door neighbours and the extended family looking out for the safety of children when parents had to be away from home.

At the same time, she cautioned that there were predators in some families and schools who used their position to abuse vulnerable children in their care.

However, Senator Munro-Knight expressed that the Child Protection Bill, 2024 represented the administration’s demonstration that it “knows better and will do better” for the island’s children.

She insisted that the existing legislation which was written more than 100 years ago was not responsive to the needs of children.

“We must ask ourselves if this is acceptable,” she told the chamber.

The senator also hit out at some critics of the Bill.

“We found there was a deliberate attempt by some in this society to introduce elements into the discourse that were blatantly untrue in order to stir up public [anxiety] and fear . . . to introduce elements that were to distract from this fundamental piece of legislation,” she said.

“Those persons, under the guise of [an] apolitical association – even though it was revealed later that was not necessarily the case – sought to carry Barbadians down a path away from what this piece of legislation was attempting to do.”
According to the government senator, the updated legislation is fit for purpose in the cause of protecting children in Barbados.

She rejected suggestions that the Bill was about giving children the ability to change their gender, and that the state was going to “do tests on children” or remove the rights of parents.

(IMC1)