CHILD ABUSE has reached “a crisis situation” in Barbados, children’s rights advocate Faith Marshall-Harris said yesterday.
Her remarks were prompted by the highly publicised deaths within the last four months of two young children – six-year-old Jahan King this week, and 12-year-old Shamar Weekes in March.
“We clearly have a crisis situation with child abuse,” Marshall-Harris, a UNICEF children’s champion, told reporters. “Of course, these two incidents have had a lot of publicity and have brought it [the problem] to our attention. But actually the abuse has been there, it’s been going on, not necessarily apparent, and I’m afraid that we have had some sort of failure in terms of handling these abuse issues.”
She complained about widespread use of corporal punishment and Barbadians’ tolerance of it. (AC/TY)
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