Michelle Loubon

Psy­chol­o­gist Mar­cia Tap­pin-Box­ill says the be­tray­al which chil­dren ex­pe­ri­enced at the hands of care­givers and loved ones of­ten left them in­se­cure and trau­ma­tised. She was com­ment­ing on the so­cial prob­lem of Child Sex­u­al Abuse (CSA) that con­tin­ues to rear its head in T&T. Box­ill made it abun­dant­ly clear the reper­cus­sions were sim­i­lar for both dis­abled and nor­mal chil­dren. She said: "They are in a help­less place and they can be over­pow­ered. It af­fects all chil­dren whether dis­abled or non-dis­abled. It af­fects them to the core of their be­ing." The chil­dren are left con­fused and hurt. She added: "There is a lot of feel­ing 'some­thing must be wrong with me.' They are in a help­less place and can­not fight for them­selves. 'Why would some­body who is nice to me, do some­thing bad to me?' "Some chil­dren, if they are men­tal­ly chal­lenged, may find them­selves ex­treme­ly con­fused." Box­ill said it was the per­pe­tra­tor and not the vic­tim who has the prob­lem.

'T&T needs heal­ing'

Box­ill al­so stressed T&T needs heal­ing due to the crimes per­pe­trat­ed against chil­dren; who are most vul­ner­a­ble. She said: "Our na­tion needs heal­ing. We are in a bad place psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly. We are show­ing forth our psy­cho­log­i­cal ill health. I'm not sure as a na­tion we are con­cerned about psy­cho­log­i­cal health. We are more con­cerned about phys­i­cal health." Box­ill said de­nial con­tributed to the so­ci­ety not ar­rest­ing the prob­lem and bring­ing per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice. She said: "It could go un­treat­ed. It's not go­ing to get bet­ter. It would get worse if left un­treat­ed. We are new to the psy­chol­o­gy. We are not ex­cit­ed about deal­ing with it. The ten­den­cy is to 'overs it' and blow it off. We are a coun­try big on de­nial and we are not good at fac­ing what's there."

Vic­tims com­ing forth

Shelv­ing the shame, Box­ill said vic­tims were speak­ing out and "more and more cas­es were com­ing to the fore". "The vic­tims are re­al­is­ing they will not be vic­timised. It caus­es us to recog­nise we, as a na­tion, have a long way to go to­wards be­ing an ad­vanced na­tion. We are em­ploy­ing bar­bar­ic ways about us."

One pos­i­tive in­ter­ven­tion was break­ing the si­lence. "Un­less the si­lence is bro­ken, and peo­ple are brought to jus­tice, you would find CSA is telling on us."