RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As Trinidad and To­ba­go ob­serves Sex­u­al Abuse Aware­ness Month and Child Abuse Aware­ness Month, a trou­bling re­port has re­vealed that more than 11,000 chil­dren have ac­cessed helpline ser­vices over the past five years—high­light­ing what ad­vo­cates say is an ur­gent need to break the taboo sur­round­ing sex and sex­u­al­i­ty and to ex­pand sup­port sys­tems for both vic­tims and abusers.

The fig­ure comes from a tech­ni­cal re­port pub­lished last week by Child­line, which ex­plored the emo­tion­al, so­cial and psy­cho­log­i­cal chal­lenges fac­ing the na­tion’s chil­dren.

The find­ings, com­piled be­tween 2020 and 2025 by Child­line’s Pro­gramme Co­or­di­na­tor Lee­vun Solomon, show a trou­bling rise in cas­es linked to sex­u­al abuse, self-harm and men­tal health strug­gles. De­scrib­ing the find­ings as “deeply un­set­tling,” Solomon, in an in­ter­view with Sun­day Guardian, said the da­ta clear­ly shows that many chil­dren feel emo­tion­al­ly dis­con­nect­ed from their par­ents and care­givers.

“Near­ly 3,000 chil­dren reached out specif­i­cal­ly to ex­press emo­tion­al dis­tress with­in the house­hold, of­ten need­ing a safe space to vent, cry, and talk through what they are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing at home,” Solomon said.

He warned that these is­sues cut across all age groups, from younger chil­dren to teenagers, rais­ing se­ri­ous ques­tions about fam­i­ly dy­nam­ics.

“It rais­es an ur­gent ques­tion- what is hap­pen­ing in our homes? Why are so many chil­dren un­able to feel safe and com­fort­able speak­ing to their par­ents about every­day chal­lenges?”

Ac­cord­ing to Solomon, many par­ents are them­selves over­whelmed and may un­in­ten­tion­al­ly dis­miss con­cerns they see as mi­nor. How­ev­er, he cau­tioned that when emo­tion­al needs go un­met, the con­se­quences can be se­vere.

“Over time, how­ev­er, these un­met emo­tion­al needs have es­ca­lat­ed in­to more se­ri­ous out­comes, in­clud­ing self-in­ju­ri­ous be­hav­iours and chil­dren ex­press­ing long­stand­ing feel­ings of hope­less­ness or wish­ing they were not alive,” Solomon added.

He said alarm­ing­ly, sex­u­al abuse re­mains a preva­lent is­sue af­fect­ing chil­dren, with girls be­ing five times more like­ly than boys to ac­cess the helpline for this mat­ter.

“Boys, how­ev­er, were more like­ly to re­port phys­i­cal abuse and ne­glect.”

Solomon said the da­ta high­lights the need for a more co­or­di­nat­ed na­tion­al re­sponse. The re­port calls for stronger re­fer­ral sys­tems to state agen­cies, im­proved ac­cess to jus­tice, and the in­te­gra­tion of emo­tion­al re­silience and men­tal health ed­u­ca­tion in­to school cur­ric­u­la. It al­so urges pol­i­cy­mak­ers to ad­dress what it de­scribes as a “pauci­ty of da­ta” in child pro­tec­tion, warn­ing that de­ci­sions are too of­ten made with­out ful­ly un­der­stand­ing chil­dren’s lived ex­pe­ri­ences.

Sur­vivor laments lack of sup­port

Mean­while, sur­vivor of child sex abuse and ad­vo­cate Sa­ree­ta Bridge­lal be­lieves that al­though there has been progress in how cas­es are han­dled, vic­tims are still not ad­e­quate­ly sup­port­ed through the le­gal process.

“One of the ma­jor chal­lenges is not just the le­gal frame­work, but en­cour­ag­ing sur­vivors to pur­sue cas­es all the way through,” she said. “The process can be slow, emo­tion­al­ly tax­ing, and of­ten re­trau­ma­tis­ing. There is not enough struc­tured men­tal and emo­tion­al sup­port for vic­tims nav­i­gat­ing the sys­tem.”

Bridge­lal stressed that sur­vivors need con­sis­tent, trau­ma-in­formed coun­selling from the mo­ment they re­port abuse. With­out that, she warned, many may aban­don the pur­suit of jus­tice al­to­geth­er.

She al­so point­ed to gaps in pub­lic un­der­stand­ing of abuse, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to groom­ing. In one re­cent case, she said, a male sur­vivor did not re­alise he had been groomed at age 11 by an old­er teenag­er—an ex­pe­ri­ence that lat­er af­fect­ed his self-worth and re­la­tion­ships.

“These are the hid­den re­al­i­ties that ed­u­ca­tion must bring to light,” she said.

Bridge­lal added that cul­tur­al at­ti­tudes and the over­sex­u­al­i­sa­tion of young peo­ple can blur the lines be­tween con­sent and co­er­cion, leav­ing vic­tims con­fused or ashamed. “We are, in many ways, what we are taught,” she said. “That is why it is so im­por­tant to in­ten­tion­al­ly teach young peo­ple about healthy sex­u­al­i­ty, bound­aries and re­spect from an ear­ly age.”

She al­so called for greater at­ten­tion to the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of per­pe­tra­tors, not­ing that many abusers are them­selves shaped by cy­cles of trau­ma. “Ad­dress­ing sex­u­al vi­o­lence re­quires us to con­front all the stig­mas sur­round­ing abuse, sex­u­al­i­ty and dom­i­nance, and to break those cy­cles at their root,” she said.

Just last Fri­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice re­vealed a 32-year-old Bar­rack­pore man was grant­ed bail af­ter ap­pear­ing in court charged with 29 counts of sex­u­al abuse against a mi­nor, in­clud­ing 15 counts of sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a child and 14 counts of sex­u­al touch­ing of a child, as well as false im­pris­on­ment and com­mon as­sault.

Pres­i­dent of Sex­u­al As­sault Sur­vivors Stand, Soleil-Marie Collins, echoed those con­cerns, say­ing that while re­ports of sex­u­al abuse may ap­pear to be in­creas­ing, the re­al­i­ty is more com­plex.

“What we are see­ing is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a sim­ple in­crease in in­ci­dents, but a greater vis­i­bil­i­ty and will­ing­ness to re­port,” she ex­plained. “For years, sex­u­al vi­o­lence has been sig­nif­i­cant­ly un­der­re­port­ed due to stig­ma, fear and lack of trust in sys­tems.”

Collins said that de­spite im­prove­ments, sur­vivors still face sig­nif­i­cant bar­ri­ers, in­clud­ing lengthy court process­es, ev­i­den­tiary chal­lenges and lim­it­ed ac­cess to care. “There is still a need for more sur­vivor-sen­si­tive pro­ce­dures, faster case han­dling, and stronger in­sti­tu­tion­al co­or­di­na­tion,” she said.

She added that while pub­lic aware­ness has grown—par­tic­u­lar­ly among younger gen­er­a­tions—stig­ma, vic­tim-blam­ing and dis­be­lief re­main per­sis­tent ob­sta­cles.

“In terms of whether enough is be­ing done, the re­al­i­ty is no—not yet,” Collins said. “Many sur­vivors still strug­gle with ac­cess to med­ical, psy­cho­log­i­cal and le­gal sup­port.”

Im­por­tant­ly, she em­pha­sised that pre­ven­tion must go be­yond aware­ness cam­paigns. “It re­quires con­sis­tent ed­u­ca­tion, ear­ly in­ter­ven­tion, and ad­dress­ing harm­ful gen­der norms,” she said. “This in­cludes en­gag­ing men and boys in mean­ing­ful ways.”

For re­searcher and ac­tivist Mar­cus Kissoon, one of the most crit­i­cal steps in pre­ven­tion is con­fronting the cul­tur­al dis­com­fort around dis­cussing sex and sex­u­al­i­ty.

“To pre­vent child abuse, es­pe­cial­ly sex­u­al abuse, we must stop treat­ing chil­dren’s sex­u­al­i­ty as taboo,” Kissoon said. “Si­lence cre­ates the con­di­tions that abusers re­ly on.”

He ar­gued that chil­dren must be giv­en safe, age-ap­pro­pri­ate spaces to learn about their bod­ies, con­sent and their rights. With­out this, he said, they re­main vul­ner­a­ble.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go must not be afraid to in­vest in health and fam­i­ly life ed­u­ca­tion,” he said. “Chil­dren need the tools to un­der­stand their bod­ies and their rights.”

More on the Child­line Re­port

Ac­cord­ing to the Child­line Re­port, a to­tal of 76.5 per cent of all in­ter­ac­tions fell in­to four main cat­e­gories: so­cial and fam­i­ly prob­lems (25.6 per cent), abuse (19.7 per cent), health and psy­choso­cial well­be­ing (19.5 per cent), and high-risk be­hav­iours (11.7 per cent). Fam­i­ly-re­lat­ed is­sues—par­tic­u­lar­ly poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion with par­ents and care­givers—emerged as the most fre­quent­ly re­port­ed con­cern, un­der­scor­ing the crit­i­cal role of the home en­vi­ron­ment.

It al­so showed that re­ports of high-risk be­hav­iours, in­clud­ing self-harm and sui­ci­dal thoughts, have tripled over the five-year pe­ri­od, while con­cerns re­lat­ed to men­tal health and psy­choso­cial well-be­ing have in­creased four­fold. Chil­dren fre­quent­ly re­port­ed feel­ings of sad­ness, lone­li­ness and be­ing “stuck,” with pas­sive sui­ci­dal ideation—es­pe­cial­ly among boys—emerg­ing as a re­cur­ring is­sue.

Cas­es of abuse have al­so steadi­ly climbed, peak­ing at 27.1 per cent in 2024. Among these, sex­u­al abuse—par­tic­u­lar­ly in­volv­ing girls—has been iden­ti­fied as one of the most se­ri­ous and grow­ing con­cerns. The re­port al­so calls for stronger fam­i­ly sup­port sys­tems, im­proved men­tal health ser­vices, and tar­get­ed in­ter­ven­tions to ad­dress both gen­der bar­ri­ers and the grow­ing com­plex­i­ty of chil­dren’s needs. It al­so ad­vo­cates for pro­mot­ing body au­ton­o­my and con­sent—par­tic­u­lar­ly among girls—while en­cour­ag­ing boys and men to play a role in fos­ter­ing re­spect and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

For help call

Child­line’s 24-hour, 7-day-a-week toll-free tele­phone helpline is avail­able at 800-4321. Chil­dren can al­so reach child­linett.org or down­load the My­Child­line App. Na­tion­al 24-Hour Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Hot­line, [http://tel:8002673]800-COPE (2673). To re­port child abuse or ac­cess the Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices, call the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty at 996 or [http://tel:8002014]800-2014 or Po­lice at 999.