NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Child abandonment is a growing concern for officials at the Ministry of Social Services according to Minister, Obediah Wilchcombe who said that they are seeing more cases in recent times.
“Women are still abandoning their children. We’ve had cases […] some very peculiar cases, a child being found on a cesspit, just there,” he said.
The minister said that the cases vary and are becoming more concerning adding that the government was contacted not too long ago about a child needing to be assisted by social services assistance after facing issues abroad.
“We have a case now where we’re looking at where a child, the Canadian social services have asked us to come in for a Bahamian child because of an issue concerning parenting.”
Wilchcombe however explained that while social services are working on making upgrades to deal with the growing issue, it is multifaceted, with police playing a major role.
He said: “We don’t get the case unless it’s referred to us by the police. Sometimes there are complaints made and we invite the police to look into it that’s what we have to tighten up on.”
“When you like us have to deal with the issues on a daily basis of children being abandoned, […] You see you have issues and you have to deal with them but if we pretend that everything is good and is perfect it’s not true, we’re not going to get the resolutions that we want.”
Efforts to combat the challenge are ongoing according to the social services minister who said that it is something that requires continuous upgrades to keep up with the needs of those most vulnerable.
He adds that the ministry is ramping up its efforts as best it can to speed up the process with its new program, launched to assist the police with such situations and the introduction of a new BTC hotline 777.
“That’s why we’ve put in place a unit now that’s going to be looking at some of these matters assisting the police so that we can get to the bottom line as quickly as possible […] because the worst case scenario is a child making a complaint or someone making a complaint and the child remained in that home because we didn’t get to them.”
Bahamas Crisis Centre Executive Director, Dr. Sandra Dean-Patterson said that numbers have also been increasing in the number of complaints sent to social services of children being violated, sexually, physically, or abandoned, and without the addition of the police reports in the mix, the percentage is still very high.
“In the 80’s it used to be 200 a year now we are up to five or six hundred a year and when you add all of them up we’re talking about thousands of children who have been victimized and who have been hurt who have been damaged.
“So when you look at the anger in the country […] if you live with that kind of violence or if you live with that kind of abuse that is what you are going to act out,” she said.
The Social Services Minister explained that he is also concerned, not only with the current situation of children being left behind or neglected by parents but with the long-term issues that come as a result of the overall situation.
“You have to remember this too, the cycle continues and when something happens, the child ends up in one of the homes and after they are in one of the homes you know, where is that love? Where is that support? They get out they don’t transition properly and then the cycle starts all over again.
“I’d like to get to the point where we have reduced all these cases. I’d like to get to the point where people have become more conscious of what they do, and how they treat their children and abandoning their children.”
