On child rights laws we’re finally getting it right

The government should be commended for taking the vitally important initiative in pursuing 21st-century child rights and child protection legislation, as ventilated in the recent)  second reading and debate in the House of Assembly of the Child Justice Bill (CJB) and the Child Protection Bill (CPB), and the 800-page report of the Joint Select Committee (Standing) on Social Sector and The Environment (JSC) related thereto.

The Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs, Kirk Humphrey, indicated in May 2023, that reported child abuse figures ranged from 611 in 2019 – 20, 667 in 2021 – 2022, and 2023 saw “a trajectory that says this year’s total will be close to or at our highest number of reported cases”.  We all know that child abuse is significantly underreported as well. We should focus on this ongoing crisis.

These bills focus on children who are most at risk of abuse and have been abused, too often under circumstances that shock the soul. Too often that abuse is perpetrated by those who those children trust the most to protect them – their parents, family members and friends, religious leaders and schoolteachers.

Our traditional culture of children being ‘seen and not heard’ too often militates against the child having the courage to seek help; too often when reports are made, they are either ignored by the adult or have delayed response, perhaps from an under-resourced agency to whom they are reported.  We all grieve for six-year-old Jahan King’s unnatural death in June 2015, despite his grandmother’s frequent contact with authorities voicing her concern. We recall our shock on the death of 12-year-old Shamar Weekes, in May 2015. The alleged suspected abuse of both boys was reported frequently to the relevant government agencies prior to their deaths.  Girls are targeted by big hardbacked men who say: “After 11 is lunch” and their own mothers who sacrifice them for material gain.  Our boys are victims too of older men and women. Babies and toddlers are preyed upon.  It is too painful to contemplate how many more egregious cases of child abuse and abuse are out there, unaddressed.

Our social workers who fight the good fight, with insufficient resources, can tell us horrors that would set our hair on fire. Clearly, the current patchwork of legislation and policies currently in force is insufficient to meet this pervasive crisis.

The related separate contribution in the House of Assembly debate by Charles Griffith, youth minister, proposing a sex offender or predator registry, is more than worthy of consideration.  It may be a challenge in a small society, but we parents and our children have a right to be forewarned of those convicted, especially repeatedly, of those gross offences.

It is particularly encouraging to see the provisions in the CPB what some call: ‘see something, say something’, where ‘mandatory reporting’ will be required of parents, authority figures who stand as ‘in loco parentis’ (assuming the duties/responsibilities of a parent), law enforcement officers, IT, teaching and medical professionals, and religious leaders. This is the norm in many modern societies.

It is imperative that the government also seeks to rectify the current embarrassment: that Barbados has relinquished its usual CARICOM leadership role, and instead is one of the last regions to incorporate modern-day legislative provisions to explicitly recognise the rights of children and to protect our children, especially those most at risk. This accords with our obligations as signatories to ‘the most widely signed human rights treaty in history’, the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which has been signed by all 196 UN member nations – except the US.

The time is clearly past due to repealing the outdated current suite of legislation and protocols governing and adjudicating child-related matters, such as the Young Persons Protection Act (1918) and the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act (1904).

Barbados was fortunate to have had the benefit of highly experienced regional and international consultants, conversant with global best practices relating to child rights standards, who informed the government in crafting the Bills’ provisions, led by internationally respected child-rights expert Faith Marshall-Harris, who became vice chair of the powerful, renowned UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

During this transformative enhancement of our child protective legislative framework, the government demonstrated responsiveness to the Bajan public, in acknowledging the wealth of concern regarding the initial public draft of the Bills, referring both to the Joint Select Committee (standing), which engaged in considerable public consultations. We note the JSC’s 800-page report concluded, inter alia, that “the majority of the submissions (from the public) focused on sexual orientation and gender identity with respect to the CPB”. This focus seems part of an unfortunate fixation, which has dominated public discussion of any new national policy relating to children, regarding fear of what is perceived by some as undue foreign influences in conflict with our cultural and religious norms.

Too often, some proponents of this approach have an apparent default oppositional view of all national change initiatives relating to child issues, through a prism of what some call a paranoid focus on gender identity, sexual preferences, and a definition of parental rights, which fails to give equal prominence to separate and equal (and in some cases paramount) child rights. One cannot help but note the almost identical similarity of this fixation with the views of the white evangelical movement, that have become so prominent in US Republican politics.

The irony and cognitive dissonance of fearing foreign influence, while simultaneously happily adopting other foreign influence, especially when largely irrelevant to our context (how many children are trans/having sex changes in Barbados?) is perplexing.

Kudos are due to the Joint Select Committee (JSC) regarding their public consultation process. Respect appears to have been extended to all who made submissions, which were carefully considered with a ‘generous amount of time in vigorous discussions, with supporting evidence and explanations’. The Report confirmed the CPB ‘does not allow the State to assign gender or to make determinations on sexual orientation’.   The JSC clarified what was an apparent lack of understanding of the nature and intent of the CPB’s provisions, and the interlinkages of this contemplated legislation with other relevant prevailing legislation and legal draughting conventions.  Certain of the concerns presented were found by the JSC as not pertinent.

A healthy democracy requires all perspectives to be heard.  This can only enhance the policy decision-making process. All members of civil society must feel their perspectives are respected and valued.

All empathetic conscientious adults recognise that as a responsible society, we have a primary duty of care to protect our most vulnerable residents; in this case, our children.  The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which some dismiss as promoting a Western agenda, has as its primary purpose ‘to serve the best interests of the child’.  It should be noted that the convention sets out from the beginning that its provisions should be implemented within the context of the culture and traditions of its signatory countries, which should always be respected, unless such cultural traditions are harmful practices, such as female genital mutilation (FGM). The CPB and CJB both seek to discharge our societal responsibility to help a child ‘in need of care and protection’.  In view of the foregoing data on massive, reported child abuse numbers, it would be negligent not to do all in our power to provide the requisite tools to help these children. The sad reality is that some parents and guardians do fail their children egregiously, and in these cases, parental rights must defer to the rights of the child.

How can anyone say in good conscience that this legislation should be further delayed? This imperative for decisive action, once it accords with expert opinion, transcends partisan political consideration.

Will we continue to fiddle, fearing largely hypothetical, or rare scenarios, while thousands of our innocent children are under-served?

Significant deficiencies have previously occurred relating to our nation’s children, which have resulted in understandable suspicion and lack of trust, but with these child protection bills, we have finally got it right.