Pres­i­dent of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Abused and Bat­tered In­di­vid­u­als (OABI), Sh­er­na Alexan­der-Ben­jamin, said COVID-19 should not be made a “scape­goat” for the in­crease in sex­u­al and oth­er forms of abuse against the na­tion’s chil­dren.

Alexan­der-Ben­jamin’s state­ment came in the wake of what seemed to be a re­cent surge in sex crimes against mi­nors, in T&T.

The do­mes­tic vi­o­lence sur­vivor and sex­u­al trau­ma spe­cial­ist said while in­di­vid­u­als were tak­ing ad­van­tage of the pres­ence of the virus and peo­ple's eco­nom­ic and so­cial sit­u­a­tions, in­clud­ing chil­dren's su­per­vi­sion and lack of the same, at the same time COVID-19 must not be used as the ba­sis for the in­crease in sex­u­al as­sault in­ci­dents and re­ports against our na­tion's chil­dren.

“We must not stop here (with COVID-19), as the es­ca­la­tion of vi­o­lence against chil­dren was an is­sue pre-COVID-19. In­stead, we must use this op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­ves­ti­gate why this is­sue ex­ists and de­vel­op an ac­tion­able plan to ad­dress it —to pro­tect all chil­dren now and in the fu­ture,” Alexan­der-Ben­jamin ad­vised.

Stat­ing there was a myr­i­ad of rea­sons be­hind sex­u­al crimes against chil­dren, which in­clud­ed, men­tal dis­or­ders, il­lit­er­a­cy, re­li­gious be­liefs, fam­i­ly dys­func­tion and an in­di­vid­ual's in­abil­i­ty to man­age their emo­tions etc., Alexan­der-Ben­jamin who al­so ex­pe­ri­enced sex­u­al abuse as a mi­nor em­pha­sised: “Un­con­scious and con­scious pa­tri­ar­chal ide­olo­gies dri­ve men's sex­u­al­ly ag­gres­sive be­hav­iours, lack of sex­u­al con­trol, and thoughts about own­er­ship of women and girls' bod­ies.”

She said this must be ad­dressed to change the nor­mal­i­sa­tion of vi­o­lence through ag­gres­sive sex­u­al ex­pres­sions as these ide­olo­gies en­able a sex­u­alised and rape cul­ture.

Alexan­der-Ben­jamin be­lieves ef­forts must be made to work with in­di­vid­u­als and groups to change pro-vi­o­lent think­ing, which of­ten man­i­fests in the vi­o­lent ex­pres­sions of con­flicts and vi­o­lence against chil­dren and adults, ul­ti­mate­ly cen­tred on in­di­vid­u­als' ad­dress­ing the as­sump­tions and so­cial­i­sa­tion that guide their be­hav­iours and ac­tions against them­selves and oth­ers.

“State, pri­vate and civ­il so­ci­ety ac­tors should col­lab­o­rate to de­vel­op ap­proach­es to ed­u­cat­ing in­di­vid­u­als on ways to build healthy re­la­tion­ships with them­selves and oth­ers and work with the chil­dren of our na­tion to un­der­stand the con­tin­u­um of be­hav­iours and to pre­vent and ad­dress un­healthy sex­u­al in­ci­dents,” said Alexan­der-Ben­jamin.

She ex­pressed, not on­ly was it para­mount to ed­u­cate chil­dren about their bod­ies and to build their ca­pac­i­ty to use their voic­es, but there was the need to in­clude pro­grammes to ed­u­cate adults about break­ing the ‘norm’ of keep­ing se­crets and what they in­ter­pret as good and bad se­crets.

“When it comes to abuse of any kind, there is noth­ing good about a se­cret, so this boils down to chang­ing our lan­guage and how we com­mu­ni­cate with our­selves and with oth­ers,” re­lat­ed Alexan­der-Ben­jamin.

The ac­tivist, how­ev­er, did not leave out the role of women per­pe­tra­tors, she said: “As a coun­try, we must ad­dress un­healthy no­tions about mas­culin­i­ties and fem­i­nini­ties as these feed mis­con­cep­tions about per­pe­tra­tors. While men as per­pe­tra­tors are over­rep­re­sent­ed, we must not leave out that women are al­so per­pe­tra­tors. We of­ten leave this out be­cause men are in a more sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of per­pe­tra­tors.”