Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Amid da­ta sug­gest­ing that re­ports of gen­der-based vi­o­lence and child abuse are de­creas­ing, of­fi­cers of the TTPS Spe­cial Vic­tims Unit (SVU) are urg­ing par­ents to re­main vig­i­lant when in­tro­duc­ing new ro­man­tic part­ners in­to their house­holds as step-par­ents.

Dur­ing a TTPS me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Sackville Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, head of the unit, act­ing Supt Roger Reyes, cit­ed fig­ures com­piled by the po­lice be­tween Jan­u­ary and Ju­ly this year and com­pared them with the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od in 2025.

The fig­ures showed that child pro­tec­tion of­fences de­creased by 9.4 per cent.

Reyes al­so not­ed that in­ti­mate part­ner vi­o­lence fell by 40.3 per cent, while cru­el­ty to chil­dren de­creased by 33.1 per cent.

Phys­i­cal abuse as­so­ci­at­ed with gen­der-based vi­o­lence al­so de­creased by 35.7 per cent, while breach­es of pro­tec­tion or­ders fell by 57.9 per cent.

Reyes said ar­rests for child pro­tec­tion of­fences in­creased by 40.5 per cent, which he at­trib­uted to greater pub­lic con­fi­dence and will­ing­ness to re­port such crimes.

Asked whether the de­creas­es could be part­ly due to cas­es go­ing un­re­port­ed be­cause of the sen­si­tive na­ture of such crimes, Reyes ac­knowl­edged that this was pos­si­ble.

How­ev­er, he said ef­forts were un­der­way to build trust in com­mu­ni­ties and en­cour­age more peo­ple to come for­ward and seek po­lice as­sis­tance.

“We are aware in some in­stances that re­ports can be un­der-re­port­ed, but we are work­ing to­wards go­ing in­to com­mu­ni­ties, do­ing out­reach pro­grammes, meet­ing the peo­ple to get those re­ports,” Reyes said.

Par­ents urged to

watch for red flags

An­oth­er of­fi­cer, ASP Lei­th Jones, stressed the im­por­tance of proac­tive polic­ing in pre­vent­ing and in­ves­ti­gat­ing such crimes.

He re­ferred to a re­cent in­ci­dent in which a child was sex­u­al­ly abused by her step­fa­ther while her bi­o­log­i­cal moth­er was tem­porar­i­ly abroad on busi­ness.

Jones urged par­ents to be cau­tious about the be­hav­iour of strangers, in­clud­ing new ro­man­tic part­ners, whom they bring in­to their homes and around their chil­dren.

“There must be re­spon­si­ble be­hav­iour on the part of the par­ent, con­sid­er­ing that you’re bring­ing some­one in­to the home of your chil­dren,” Jones said.

He al­so en­cour­aged par­ents and rel­a­tives to pay close at­ten­tion to chil­dren’s in­ter­ac­tions with new house­hold mem­bers.

“Fol­low­ing that there must be a con­ver­sa­tion in the house­hold or with the rel­a­tives ... I have had per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences where I have ad­vised peo­ple to ob­serve the child’s in­ter­ac­tion with the per­son. Some­times chil­dren give very good sig­nals,” he said.

Jones said par­ents should watch for po­ten­tial warn­ing signs, in­clud­ing how a per­son looks at, touch­es or in­ter­acts with a child.

“Iden­ti­fy how that per­son’s eyes may fol­low the child around the house, how they in­ter­act, how they hug, how they touch, how they be­come close to the child. So you’re look­ing for every lit­tle red flag. Now, the flag may not be an in­tent to do some­thing, but I’d rather we iden­ti­fy a red flag than let it go un­no­ticed and the child be­comes the vic­tim of a crime,” he said.

Jones added that par­ents who are aware of, or sus­pect, abuse against their chil­dren by an­oth­er rel­a­tive but hes­i­tate to re­port it to pro­tect that rel­a­tive could al­so face crim­i­nal charges for fail­ing to act.

“If that is iden­ti­fied dur­ing the course of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, that per­son is very like­ly to be pros­e­cut­ed for that of­fence, be­cause there are manda­to­ry re­port­ing oblig­a­tions, whether it be by a par­ent, a teacher, or a doc­tor ... any­body who a child dis­clos­es to, or who be­comes aware (of abuse),” he said.

Jones said while the cur­rent law man­dates peo­ple to re­port in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ing to child sex­u­al abuse, he hoped it would even­tu­al­ly evolve to im­pose a le­gal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to re­port all cat­e­gories of abuse.

Jones al­so high­light­ed con­cerns about chil­dren’s ex­po­sure to harm­ful on­line con­tent.

He re­ferred to a re­cent in­ci­dent in which a girl en­coun­tered in­ap­pro­pri­ate web­sites while us­ing her moth­er’s cell­phone.

Jones said the child, who was un­der 12, did not spec­i­fy the na­ture of the web­sites but re­port­ed that she had de­vel­oped an in­ter­est in that type of con­tent.

He said in­ter­ven­tion was un­der way to as­sist the child and pre­vent the de­vel­op­ment of over­sex­u­alised be­hav­iour.

On el­der abuse, Jones not­ed that cas­es in­volv­ing el­der­ly peo­ple be­ing abused or ex­ploit­ed for their pen­sion cheques could be in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit or di­vi­sion­al Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment, de­pend­ing on the ev­i­dence avail­able.

He ac­knowl­edged that cas­es in­volv­ing el­der­ly vic­tims who are heav­i­ly de­pen­dent on oth­ers for mo­bil­i­ty or com­mu­ni­ca­tion can be dif­fi­cult to re­port.

How­ev­er, Jones said neigh­bours and oth­ers who sus­pect wrong­do­ing al­so have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to act.

“Wher­ev­er you have sus­pi­cion... you don’t have to have ev­i­dence, you know. Once you have sus­pi­cion of this crime tak­ing place, you don’t even have to iden­ti­fy who you are. We have a num­ber of anony­mous means of re­port­ing to the po­lice. They will be in­ves­ti­gat­ed,” he said.

“As I in­di­cat­ed ear­li­er, we are not wait­ing for you to come to us. Based on the in­ter­ven­tion re­quired, we will send our of­fi­cers to the vic­tim or a lo­ca­tion where the re­port can be tak­en and dealt with ap­pro­pri­ate­ly,” Jones said.