Legal fix urged amid ‘alarming’ spike in abuse

An alarming increase in child abuse reports to a national hotline has led noted children rights advocate Faith Marshall-Harris to call on the authorities to introduce the child rights legislation to legally tackle these issues.

Marshall-Harris declared she has been forced to inform Barbadians about an increase in emotional and verbal abuse against children, following a rise in calls from frustrated and helpless children and concerned adults to the FMH (Faith Marshall-Harris) SLCT (Sandy Lane Charitable Trust) Children’s Helpline to make complaints.

She said: “A lot of the calls that I get I can put down to some form of abuse.

“And I am certainly looking forward to new legislation which has been very long in coming, where a number of abusive situations will be dealt with by law and will be spelled out and that is being worked on as we speak.

“We should have a new draft in the new year, I hope. This is child protection legislation.”

In an interview with Barbados TODAY at her Brighton, St George office, the only UNICEF Champion for Children in the Caribbean, said over the past four weeks, the helpline received 20 abuse-related calls, which included 16-year-old girls complaining that their parents were seeking to throw them out of the home.

Marshall-Harris said: “In the past month, I have received I would say 20 calls that were related in some form or fashion to child abuse.

“Twenty direct calls that initiated some action on my part I got in the past months. I have got calls from 16-year-old girls who were being told they have to leave the house and find someplace because they are not welcomed there anymore.

“And I have some authorities who are suggesting to parents that you don’t have to give them shelter after 16.

“And I have had to point out that is not true. Up until 16, they have a right to shelter. Don’t get tied up. At 16 they can indicate to you their preference of where they would like to live, but that has nothing to do with the fact that if they want to live in the parental home that they are not entitled to shelter.

“You can’t just kick them out because you have a difference of opinion.”

The UNICEF Champion also revealed her intervention in the case of a young woman, trying to study for CXC, was attacked by her mother who claimed her studies were interfering with the family’s social life. Marshall-Harris said the girl’s mother pushed her down a flight of stairs and told her not to return. The student has since been allowed to return home following Marshall-Harris’s efforts.

“Saying to a child, ‘I am sorry I didn’t abort you’, is abuse,” the child rights advocate said. “It is cruel and abusive.

“Saying to a child, ‘I don’t know why you don’t go and kill yourself’, is abusive and that is the sort of language that has been out there for a long time.

“I think what has become acute now is that during this pandemic, a lot of these issues seem to have spiked.”

Marshall-Harris said she was concerned that the abuse has been causing serious harm to children, particularly those who believe that it is the norm because they have been exposed to it for a long time.

Too often she has had to point out to parents that they are conditioning their children to be violent through their verbal abuse, she said.

The campaigner said while she makes no excuse for bad behaviour by a child, research must be carried out to find out why a child feels it is okay to react in an unruly manner.

Marshall-Harris told Barbados TODAY: “We have to do that for the sake of the child, we have to do that for the sake of society.

“Too often in dealing with persons speaking to me, they are stopping short at ‘this child so wicked, this child so bad, this child is a total criminal’.

“I’ve often got to point out that this child didn’t come out of the womb with these tendencies, a lot of it is environmental because that is the life they live, that is the language they live, that is how Mummy speaks to Daddy and that is how Aunt speaks to Grandma.

“Children repeat and model the behaviour on what the adults around them do and we have got to tackle that head-on otherwise it will continue to be exacerbated.

“Some of the calls that I have got have to do with straightforward domestic violence between partners which I am very interested in because it has an effect on the children; this is what they watch, what they hear, what they see.”

The helpline was launched 19 months ago and is operated by Marshall-Harris and 30 volunteer social workers who offer counselling and refer matters to state agencies.

Marshall-Harris said she was pleased to see that abuse cases are now being highlighted now more than in the past, through the use of technology that equips authorities with the necessary tools to intervene and provide solutions.

(anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb)