Government Senator Urges Senate to Pass Child Protection Bill Amid Rising Child Abuse Cases

In an impassioned speech to the Senate, government Senator Reverend Charles Morris has issued an urgent plea for the passage of the Child Protection Bill, citing escalating rates of child abuse within homes, schools, even churches.

Highlighting his other roles as a high school teacher and Anglican cleric, he said a surge in reported cases suggested a critical need for legislative reform to safeguard the nation’s most vulnerable.

“This Bill is a necessity because, in our society, parents are outsourcing their children,” he said. “It seems like most parents are not taking responsibility for their children but they are outsourcing them to various agencies for protection. They are outsourcing their children to the nurseries, kindergarten, and to the schools . . . . Principals have become the surrogate grandparents and teachers have become the surrogate parents, and anytime we see children being outsourced, the government has a right to bring legislation to protect them.”

Emphasising the level of child abuse on the island, especially domestic abuse, the senator said: “There are a lot of families staying at home, waiting for the stranger to appear who will abuse the persons in the house. The stranger never comes because the stranger, the abuser, is in the house.

“I speak with a certain degree of passion because of what I’m seeing and having experienced as a teacher . . . students come and speak to me in confidence about some of the things that happened to them and they cannot say a word because whenever it happens, they are advised to keep silent because this is home, it’s supporting this house.”

The teacher and priest also noted the existence of sexual molestation of students by teachers in schools. Among other forms of child maltreatment, he named religious abuse, recounting an occasion where a girl was sexually harassed by a pastor who tried to convince her the deeds were aligned with receiving the Holy Spirit.

“These are the kinds of things that are happening to our children. Another kind of religious abuse is also fighting our children with the Gospel, using it to create psychological problems on our children because they are always being told that they are living in sin and so this or that will happen,” he said.

Senator Morris also questioned the motives behind opposing the Bill’s reforms.

“I read the comments on this Bill – opposition built on issues that are not contained in the Bill, saying it will deny rights. I see the opposite . . . .The rights of children are protected. There are some who are arguing that parents have a right to raise their children as they see fit. And I agree with that argument as long as what parents see fit is in line with the law,” he said.

“We all know that some children are scared of their parents, afraid of saying what exactly is happening, and this legislation allows children to do that. There are persons, maybe who are weak by name or nature, marching up and down this place creating havoc, and I have said that it seems to me that there is an attempt to make this country ungovernable.”

Reverend Morris praised the Bill’s mandatory reporting clause that compels individuals to report suspected child abuse.

In an emphatic plea to end his speech, he said: “If we do not protect our children, tell me, who will?”

shannamoore@barbadostoday.bb