NASSAU, BAHAMAS — When COVID-19 necessitated nationwide lockdowns across the globe, at the forefront of global concerns was the pandemic’s impact to the most vulnerable in society. The ramifications of the shutdown for social groups reliant on public goodwill and state intervention seemed clear; however, the solutions or a roadmap identifying next steps remain elusive nearly two years on. What has pervaded though, and in some respects become more perverse, is our willful ignorance, righteous indignation, and rapacious hunger for the obscene.
Police have confirmed that four-year-old D’Onya “Bella” Walker died from the multiple fractures she sustained as a result of blunt force trauma to her body. She was taken to Princess Margaret Hospital injured and unresponsive around 5pm last Friday but the news of her death swept the country on the wings of WhatsApp reports that detailed the severity in which her body was allegedly desecrated. Police did not confirm sexual assault, nor did they previously suggest it. Yet that narrative dominated the social consciousness, propelled by outrage, with reactionary statements and threats of retaliatory violence amounting to proselytism.
But who are we trying to convert to our side — the abusers, the wider public? In the face of such depravity, does our collective reproach and disgust provide a level of separation from the grim reality that we are reaping the same harvest due to our neglect of worsening social conditions? Does calling for the death of Bella’s abuser provide comfort that can justify widespread inaction?
“What we are finding is as a result of covid and the fact that children are not able to have the normal outlets that they normally have,” said attorney and former Senator Lisa Bostwick-Dean during an appearance on Beyond The Headlines with host Shenique Miller.
“They don’t have that time out of the home for school. Parents and abusers are home more people are not working as much, the children are more accessible to those persons who abuse them and so there is most certainly an increase in child abuse and I dare to say domestic violence as a result of the incidence of COVID.”
Despite this, Minister of State of Social Services and Urban Development Lisa Rahming this week pointed to a nearly 80 percent drop off in reporting of child abuse cases between 2018 and 2020. She told Eyewitness News there were more than 600 cases in 2018, but just over 100 cases were reported in 2020.
In her senate contribution, FNM Senator Maxine Seymour said: “Sometimes it requires that the village gets in other people’s business. Be a nosy neighbor, call the police every time, call child protection, call anyone but whatever you do – don’t sit idly by.”
But in some respects, and at varying points throughout this pandemic, all Bahamians have been able to do is sit idly by. COVID-19 has turned the cracks in our society into a gaping maw that is swallowing up the most vulnerable at an alarming rate. While it would be easy to simply focus on the growing deficit of social accountability within our communities, sadly this does little more than extend the shame and blame game.
Rahming alluded to legislative amendments to introduce penalties aimed at engendering greater accountability for bystanders, but what exactly are they expected to report, and to whom, when auxiliary support services are woefully undermanned and underfunded?
Rahming said: “It is mandatory for you as residents to report alleged abuse or suspected abuse, the law requires you to do that. I’ve heard many reports where persons who lived within the vicinity to where the child died would have said that they knew but they weren’t sure, that they saw signs.
“We should look forward to an amendment in this regard to safeguard our children and that is the only way persons would feel they are responsible, responsible people for those who would have known should have known or did know and didn’t report it.”
Rahming added: “We’re just asking persons to please, please, I know everyone says I don’t want to get involved, it’s not my business, I don’t want to get hurt, I think we are beyond that especially if we want to see national change.”
We are well beyond the need for national change, but as Director of Gender and Family Affairs Dr Calae Phillippe underscored: “Changes needed across the board”.
Dr Phillippe acknowledged the need for increased intervention, primarily more resources for victims. In an environment where we can acknowledge there are not enough safe houses for women, how can we in the same breath turn to penalizing women for not seeking out safe havens? In an environment where we can debate whether rape can be transformed within the context of marriage, and struggle with the removal of corporal punishment in public schools, our social ills amount to a snake eating its own tail.
“I think we have to be very careful here when we speak to women and what they must do with respect to their children,” Bostwick-Dean added.
Bostwick-Dean continued: “I think we would be missing something here if we made this simply a discussion about what we have to do to educate mothers. We have to come up with a plan right now with how do we as a society care for our children…How can we care for our children right now, while they are not in school? What can we do, can we ask the churches to open up centers to help them? Can we ask the government to make library facilities available? What can we do to take our children out of this environment where we have to rely on God knows who to care for our children.”
When a child rises to national or international acclaim, we celebrate their wins as our own national achievement. However, when a child is abused there is no collective responsibility and acceptance of the transgression, instead a national campaign to shift blame until it becomes manageable enough to sweep under the rug. We witness the treatment of expectant mothers in the public healthcare system, we see young children walking even younger children to school and selling snacks unsupervised on busy street corners but instead focus on single parents, whether missing teen girls are simply promiscuous and the spoils of gang violence.
The scandalized claims concerning Bella’s death have put Marco’s Law and the promised sex offender register back in the spotlight more than two years after the register came into force.
Minister of National Security Wayne Munroe confirmed yesterday a number of sex offenders have been released from the Department of Correctional Services without being placed on the register or having to comply with reporting requirements.
Bella’s life, the lives of child victims, are more than touchstones for the nation’s morality. There is a right to outrage, but there is a national duty to act, to serve, and protect our communities. We must center the most vulnerable in our society, not out of a desire to evade shame or disrepute but from an ideological tenet that true progress mandates no one is left behind.
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