THE newest version of the Children’s Bill to be debated in Parliament is a consolidation of much-needed legislation and could make a difference in children’s rights locally, head of the Coalition Against Domestic Violence and child rights activist, Diana Mahabir-Wyatt, has said.
Mahabir-Wyatt said this particular piece of legislation has been one of those to have suffered years in delays due to changing governments, but she is encouraged by the latest version, which appears to have greater detail than previous documents.
The current incarnation of the bill is an amalgamation of various packages that have been put forth over the past decade and which have continuously been withdrawn for amendments and clarification.
The Children Bill has also been one of those pieces of legislation that has suffered fallout from changes in governments, with successive governments attempting to make the bill their own before passing it.
Mahabir-Wyatt said the present bill appears to have provided clarity on a number of issues that child rights activists have clamoured for and she is hopeful that this package may see more success in Parliament.
It will also go a long way to providing legislative framework that supports this country’s signature on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and will give more power to the Children’s Authority, as the go-to body for children’s issues.
“This is a cleaning up of what should have been cleaned up long ago,” Mahabir-Wyatt said.
“This bill could make a huge difference.”
Mahabir-Wyatt said some may question the inclusion of issues such as “genital mutilation”, which may be seen as irrelevant to local society.
She said, however, that T&T is becoming increasingly “international”, with heavy migration into the country from the Middle East and Africa, both with some cultures that practise genital mutilation on women and girls for religious and social reasons.
“This can be preventative,” she said.
“As we see more migrants coming into the country, they may also bring their traditions with them. Or some sect or cult may decide that it is necessary for cultural reasons.”
The bill also clarifies issues related to child pornography and what constitutes sexual assault on a minor.
The document specifies that any object or part of a person inserted into the orifice of a child, defined not only as the “vagina” and “anus” but also as the ear and mouth, may constitute the sexual abuse of a child.
“The previous legislation was not as detailed,” Mahabir-Wyatt said.
Definition was also needed on child pornography, which the document provides.
“This is a growing problem here and with everyone now being able to record things, it is getting worse,” she said.
Commenting on the recent spate of child deaths and abuse to have made the news, Mahabir-Wyatt said these incidents do little to change the local belief that children must be beaten and abused to be disciplined.
On January 20, six-year-old Josiah Governor died after being beaten by his stepfather, Ronnie John, for not completing his mathematics homework.
Neighbours in Laventille said the child had been abused most of his life.
Last Wednesday, 12-year-old Everton Vasquez hanged himself after being beaten with a belt by his grandmother, who said she did it to discipline the boy.
Last Monday, an eight-year-old pupil of Blackman’s Private School reportedly had his head flushed in a toilet by a teacher, also an act meant to discipline.
Mahabir-Wyatt said children “have the sense of time” and when living with abuse, will often assume that “it will always be this way”.
“When another child is murdered, we solemnly stand by and watch ministers cry real tears, and, sometimes, move to pass yet another bill into law, but twenty years goes by and still children get ‘punished’ by being beaten to death by their care-givers,” she said.
“On a Monday we read that Josiah Governor died following a beating from his stepfather who used the excuse that Josiah had not done his math homework. Week after week, the neighbours had heard the nightly beatings and howls of pain. And done nothing.
“A week later we read that a 12-year-old boy committed suicide after being beaten by his grandmother. This, too, was a common practice. These two incidents took place while the trial over the murder of little Amy Anamanthudo was being heard in the courts. She was only four when she was beaten to death, only one incident in a little life filled with beatings, cigarette burns and other brutalities. In the same week we read a report of a teacher flushing a child’s head in a toilet, in the same school that my family had to remove a five-year-old grandchild from for having been physically and emotionally abused 20 years ago. The more things change, the more they remain the same, apparently. And in each of the above cases of abuse, the adult perpetrators show little or no remorse.”
She added:
“Children die in this country from the abusive actions of adults, and still, and still, grown men and women say of the children in their care: ‘If you don’t beat them, they won’t learn’, or ‘Well, I was beaten when I was a child and I turned out all right’.
“What makes such people think they have turned out all right? Is flushing a child’s head in the toilet the action of an adult who is ‘all right’? I once had a man who was buggering his two young sons say the same thing to me: ‘So what is wrong with that? They did it to me when I was a child and I turned out all right!'”
What children learn from being beaten, she said, is that violence against weaker persons by strong ones is how to get one’s way.
