Child Abuse Statistics for TCI Revealed

By Sherrica Thompson

Staff Writer

#TurksandCaicos, April 13, 2023 – The three most prevalent forms of child abuse in the Turks and Caicos in 2022 were physical abuse, sexual abuse and neglect, this is according to Tiffany Thomas-Browne, Director of Social Development and Gender Affairs.

Thomas-Browne made the revelation during an interview with Magnetic Media on Wednesday, April 12, as the world is commemorating Child Abuse Prevention month.  Thomas-Browne was joined by the Senior Social Worker responsible for the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub or MASH, Kelvina Capron, where concerning figures were unveiled.

Based on the data shared with us by the Director, a total of 70 related child abuse cases were reported in 2022: twenty-nine (29) physical abuse, thirteen (13) child sexual abuse (adult-to-child); thirteen (13) child in need or neglect cases; four (4) emotional abuse matters, six (6) runaways and five (5) child deaths.

Capron revealed that the impact of child abuse differed by gender, but as it relates to sex abuse by adults, in 2022, every case in the Turks and Caicos was against girl children.

“So physical abuse, that’s more of our younger clients, and sexual abuse (adult-to-child) that’s mostly females that we find but all females for 2022. We do have males in the past, but since we’re looking at the 2022 data, that was all female clients; child-in-need is both males and females.”

Capron noted that most of the reported cases were mainly among the Haitian community, which accounted for more than half of the reported child abuse cases.

“The areas that we see a lot of our cases coming from are the more troubled areas in terms of the Five Cays, the Dock Yard areas and other areas… areas made up predominantly of persons from the Haitian community.  About 95% of our cases are coming from the Haitian community.”

The Senior Social Worker also told us that the Department is confronted by an uptick in matters when it comes to child abuse in the islands, but she stressed that does not indicate concretely that child abuse has increased throughout the country; she said it’s more of an indication of heightened public awareness, which has led to more reporting.

“So if you look at from pre-2020 to now, you find that our social workers and officers who are all at the MASH, we are doing more awareness in schools and terms of clinic visits, PTAs and so forth. We are actually doing more awareness in the community, so you find that we’re getting more reports coming in cause people are more aware of the types of child abuse, what to look for and how to go about reporting.”

The information from the MASH manager lines up with who is actually reporting cases of abuse; schools and the hospitals are making the Department aware of children in abusive situations.

While the ladies agreed that progress has been made and plans are in place to do even more.  The public is reminded that it is a collective responsibility to safeguard our children. If you see, hear or assume a child is in danger, you should report it. Allow the experts to address the situation and get any and every child the help they deserve.