Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

High­er in­ci­dents of in­cest and sex­u­al abuse against chil­dren are be­ing record­ed by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice. Lat­est sta­tis­tics re­veal that be­tween Jan­u­ary and April 2011, there were 161 re­port­ed cas­es of in­cest, rape and sex­u­al of­fences against chil­dren in the coun­try. This marks an in­crease dur­ing the same pe­ri­ods in 2010 and 2009. Whether these new sta­tis­tics are at­trib­uted to the Gov­ern­ment's ag­gres­sive child pro­tec­tion cam­paign or re­cent re­search and so­cial in­ter­ven­tions by Pro­fes­sor Rho­da Red­dock and Dr San­dra Reid, of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, it is clear that in­cest and sex­u­al abuse re­main on the front burn­er of the Gov­ern­ment's so­cial re­form agen­da.

Al­though the Gov­ern­ment has es­tab­lished a 131 hot­line for cit­i­zens to re­port in­cest and child abuse, leg­isla­tive re­form is al­so need­ed to curb such de­viance. In the first part of this fea­ture, se­nior jour­nal­ist Rad­hi­ka Sookraj ex­plores the plight of three vic­tims of in­cest who live in south Trinidad. Sookraj al­so looks at the ar­cha­ic sex­u­al of­fences laws, as well as the strug­gles be­ing faced by of­fi­cials in the Gov­ern­ment's Child Guid­ance Unit and the Child Abuse Unit, as they grap­ple to help chil­dren deal with the life long ef­fects of in­cest on the in­di­vid­ual and the school sys­tem. The sec­ond part of the fea­ture will as­sess the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of sex­u­al abuse and the at­tempt be­ing made by the Gov­ern­ment, non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions and acad­e­mia in ad­dress­ing the prob­lem.

Vic­tims of in­cest

It was a scan­dal that rocked the Wood­land com­mu­ni­ty in south Trinidad sev­er­al weeks ago. A 12-year-old girl claimed that her bi­o­log­i­cal fa­ther ca­joled her on­to a bed, while her moth­er was at work, and per­formed oral sex on her, be­fore rap­ing her. It was not the first such in­ci­dent to oc­cur in the house­hold, as the 42-year-old fa­ther had al­so al­leged­ly mo­lest­ed the girl's 14-year-old sis­ter as well, more than a year ago. A close rel­a­tive who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said the man of­ten fon­dled his two el­dest daugh­ters. Be­cause they have eight mouths to feed, the chil­dren's moth­er of­ten went to do do­mes­tic work to sup­ple­ment the fam­i­ly's in­come. In a brief in­ter­view last week, the young girl said she was afraid that her fa­ther would be sent to jail if she had told any­one of the rape.

She said: "I didn't know what to do. I didn't know that he did that al­so to my sis­ter. I hate my­self. I should have tell her (sis­ter) that Dad­dy told me that if I say any­thing they will send him to jail. "I didn't want to live in an or­phan­age," she wept. "I feel dirty and some­times I think that I should not live. "It was on­ly last month that we had coun­selling in school and they told us that if we had a se­cret, we should write it on a pa­per and send it to the coun­sel­lor. "I wrote that down and then Miss ap­proached me and I told her every­thing." At first, the girl's moth­er re­fused to be­lieve it. But when her el­der sis­ter al­so con­fessed, the 40-year-old woman broke down in tears. "Here it is I am try­ing to help and this is what hap­pens...I failed my chil­dren," she cried. The 42-year-old sus­pect is now on the run.

A neigh­bour, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said they were not sur­prised by the in­ci­dent. "His fa­ther al­so do that to his sis­ters...He grow up like that and this is why he do that," he said. "All of them know what was hap­pen­ing...Don't let them fool you." He said the man was hid­ing out in south-east Trinidad, yet the po­lice could not find him. In an­oth­er in­ci­dent, a 16-year-old and 13-year-old of Fyz­abad were al­so mo­lest­ed by their step­fa­ther. Their moth­er, who even­tu­al­ly end­ed her re­la­tion­ship with the man, said she now could not pro­vide for the two teenagers and their sib­lings, aged two and five. "Af­ter the girls told me what he did, he threw them out and said he did not want them in the house...I left with them," she said. "We rent­ed an apart­ment for $1,600, but now I got laid off from my job and I can­not pay the rent...I need a job."

In yet an­oth­er case, a 33-year-old welder of Point Fortin was al­so charged with mo­lest­ing a 12-year-old. It is al­leged that be­tween April and May this year, the welder be­gan touch­ing the girl, af­ter which he raped her on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions. That mat­ter is now be­fore the courts. Al­though these in­ci­dents have been re­port­ed, so­cial work­ers in the St Patrick and Vic­to­ria re­gions said there were many oth­er in­cest cas­es which went un­re­port­ed. A source who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty says of­ten times the vic­tims of in­cest feel guilty about re­port­ing the as­sailant. "This per­son is some­one that they trust...He would play on this trust," the source said. "Too of­ten the moth­er can­not deal with this. The re­la­tion­ship be­tween moth­er and daugh­ter breaks down. The child feels ne­glect­ed."

The of­fi­cial said there was al­so an un­will­ing­ness by neigh­bours and rel­a­tives to re­port the in­ci­dent. "Neigh­bours feel it is not their busi­ness...Close rel­a­tives be­lieve if they ig­nore it, every­thing will go away," the of­fi­cial said. "The child suf­fers and may grow up to be­come a sex­u­al de­viant." So­cial ac­tivist in the La Brea com­mu­ni­ty Sis­ter Maria Clarke Paul, in a re­cent in­ter­view, said there were cas­es of in­cest in the com­mu­ni­ty. Clarke who op­er­ates a shel­ter in La Brea ex­plained that high pover­ty lev­els and un­em­ploy­ment were mak­ing La Brea a very de­pressed area. In the Mara­bel­la and Clax­ton Bay ar­eas, sources in the So­cial Wel­fare De­part­ment said there were two cas­es where­by chil­dren were ex­posed to pornog­ra­phy. "We found that one of the boys, aged five, was dis­play­ing ab­nor­mal be­hav­iour and we lat­er found that his par­ents would of­ten look at X-rat­ed movies along with him," the of­fi­cial said.

WARN­ING SIGNS OF CHILD ABUSE

Abused chil­dren of­ten show sud­den and marked changes in be­hav­iour that are tell tale signs that they may be abused. Some be­hav­iour­al signs to look for are:

• With­draw­al from ac­tiv­i­ties, friends and fam­i­ly;

• Dis­play of in­ap­pro­pri­ate/overt sex­u­al be­hav­iour;

• Un­usu­al in­ter­est in, or avoid­ance of all things if a sex­u­al na­ture;

• Vis­i­ble sad­ness;

• Poor hy­giene, un­kempt ap­pear­ance, mal­nour­ish­ment;

• Marked de­cline in school per­for­mance;

• Self-de­struc­tive or self-abu­sive be­hav­iour or sui­ci­dal thoughts;

• Ag­gres­sive or dis­rup­tive be­hav­iour; and

• Avoid­ance or dis­like of vis­it­ing a par­tic­u­lar rel­a­tive or fam­i­ly friend.

Any­one who ob­serves these be­hav­iours in a child must no­ti­fy the school prin­ci­pal/teacher/so­cial work­er in your com­mu­ni­ty, or call Child­line at 131 or 800-4231.

LAWS ­ON SEX­U­AL ABUSE

Sex­u­al Of­fences Act 1986 Part One, Sec­tion 4.

1. A male per­son com­mits the of­fence of rape when he has sex­u­al in­ter­course with a fe­male per­son who is not his wife ei­ther-

(a) with­out her con­sent where he knows that she does not con­sent to the in­ter­course or he is reck­less as to whether she con­sents to it; or

(b) with her con­sent where the con­sent-

(i) is ex­tort­ed by threats or fear of bod­i­ly harm to her or to an­oth­er; or

(ii) is ob­tained by per­son­at­ing her hus­band; or

(iii) is ob­tained by false and fraud­u­lent rep­re­sen­ta­tions as to the na­ture of the act.

2. A male per­son who com­mits the of­fence of rape is li­able on con­vic­tion to im­pris­on­ment of com­mit­ting the of­fence of rape.

3. A male per­son un­der the age of 14 years is deemed in­ca­pable of com­mit­ting the of­fence of rape.

Sex­u­al Of­fences Act 1986 Part One, Sec­tion 15.

1. A per­son who in­de­cent­ly as­saults an­oth­er is guilty of an of­fence and is li­able on con­vic­tion to im­pris­on­ment for five years.

2. A per­son un­der the age of 16 years can­not in law give any con­sent which would pre­vent an act be­ing an as­sault for pur­pos­es of this sec­tion.

3. In this sec­tion, "in­de­cent as­sault" means an as­sault ac­com­pa­nied by words or cir­cum­stances in­di­cat­ing an in­de­cent in­ten­tion.

Sex­u­al Of­fences Act 1986 Part one, sec­tion 6.

1. Where a male per­son has sex­u­al in­ter­course with a fe­male per­son who is not his wife and who is un­der the age of 14 years, he is guilty of an of­fence, whether or not the fe­male per­son con­sent­ed to the in­ter­course and whether or not at the time of the in­ter­course he be­lieved her to be 14 years of age or more, and is li­able on con­vic­tion to im­pris­on­ment for life.

2. Where a mar­riage is in­valid un­der Sec­tion 13 of the Mat­ri­mo­ni­al Pro­ceed­ings and Prop­er­ty Act, the in­va­lid­i­ty does not make the man guilty of an of­fence un­der this sec­tion be­cause he had sex with the wife, if he be­lieves her to be his wife and has rea­son­able cause for the be­lief.