A life skills coach who grew up in a children’s home has told local and foreign experts that the time has come for an end to talk on child abuse and for action to replace it.
Offering her perspective after growing up in the St Dominic’s Children’s Home yesterday, Pearl Yatali-Gonzales revealed that she had revealed some of the trauma and was fortunate to have been assisted by officials from the home, as well as some from outside the system.
Yatali-Gonzales was on a panel of local and foreign experts at a webinar hosted by the US Embassy in Port-of-Spain and the International Women’s Resource Network (IWRN) yesterday. The webinar was titled ‘Child Abuse: Our Horror, Our Responsibility’.
The panel members called for legislative amendments and the setting up of institutionalised child protection systems to help prevent abuse.
Yatali-Gonzales referenced the 1997 Robert Sabga Task Force Report and the 2021 Judith Jones Report as two documents which had, “revealed the ugly side of our society as it relates to the care and living conditions for our children.”
Angry that nothing had changed during the years, she said in this case, knowledge of the situation was not powerful enough to prompt officials to act.
“The time for talk is done, we need action steps now,” she said.
But she asked, “What do you start to do? You must take a step and we have not decided as a people, what that step is.”
Those on the panel called for more efforts to be made towards healing those who were abused and to reform those who may have turned into abusers themselves.
Assistant Public Affairs Officer at the US Embassy, Julia Rose Rodgers, acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic had reduced access to a number of services, including health, education and social aid.
“There has been a shadow pandemic of domestic violence occurring concurrently with our COVID-19 pandemic,” she said.
She expressed optimism that new steps forward can be found as restrictions are lifted and pledged the US’ help in reducing and eradicating violence against women and children.
Former Children’s Authority chairman Haniff Benjamin said T&T had to deal with almost 40 years of terror, pain and trauma between 1987 and 2022.
“We have children who were a child before and a proper adult today, 40 years, 50 years, living with this trauma... trauma that would have changed the trajectory of one’s life,” Benjamin said.
He expressed frustration with the current narrative, which had moved from saving the children and restoring a sense of security to them, to what he saw as a blame game.
Former Independent Senator Gail Merhair said the country had been left with “spineless cowards” who were now emerging from the darkness to speak up. She said this nation had “damaged children, damaged adults, and we have a broken society.”
She said T&T was crumbling and called for justice to be done where it could.
Merhair said the overwhelming response by victims coming forward now meant they want to be heard and to be healed.
Counsellor Gregory Isaacs said, “Hurt people hurt people.”
He urged officials to institutionalise a culture change to ensure those currently at homes receive the level of care they require and also help to stop the abuse that is taking place.
Briefly examining the topic of school violence, IWRN head Adriana Sandrine Issac-Rattan said while officials had missed the ball, they could not continue to look for shortcuts on how to address the problems currently being experienced.
Social worker Aretha Clarke suggested getting more social workers into schools, while Isaacs added that a return to former policy of having them visit the child’s home could be the first step in determining why he/she was acting out.
Issacs said, “During the pandemic, it appeared as if everything was all right but now school reopened, and a plethora of issues are being identified as they have returned with all of the bottled-up rage and frustrations.”
He said the involvement of local churches and NGOs could be a starting point to reach these troubled youths and would help in the establishment of a mapping configuration specific to homes and communities.
Among other recommendations were for a dedicated court to address cases of abuse, getting more licensed social workers into the system, developing a specific system to ensure social workers and those involved in child protection properly understand their roles and responsibilities and unlearning accepted norms and behaviours as it relates to disciplining and counselling children.