Horrific! - 20% spike in child abuse cases reported to CPFSA so far this year
Published:Saturday | October 27, 2018 | 12:00 AMCorey Robinson/Staff Reporter
The Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) has reported a 20 per cent increase in the number of abuse cases being reported to its investigators, with some blood-curdling cases on the list.
These include a case where a three-year-old boy was beaten to death, allegedly by a step-parent.
Another three-year-old boy was burnt with a pot of hot soup thrown on him by his mother, while a three-year-old girl suffered a broken shoulder from an abusive mother.
In one case, a six-year-old girl was being beaten and left on the roadside at night while another six-year-old girl was stabbed in the neck by her mother for spilling soap powder.
These are included in the almost 13,000 cases reported to the CPFSA between January and September this year. This is only 820 short of the total number of cases reported to the agency for all of 2017.
230 PREGNANT AFTER ABUSE
According to CPFSA investigators, at least 1,193 of the reports received this year were for incidents of sexual abuse, with at least 12 of the children sexually abused allegedly by persons employed to care for them.
More than 230 of the children sexually abused were left pregnant.
"Since the start of the year, our investigations team has dealt with a total of 2,327 cases of sexual abuse, with Kingston and St Andrew recording 463 of these cases," CEO of the CPFSA Rosalee Gage-Grey told The Gleaner as she described the numbers as disheartening.
"As it relates to physical abuse matters, we note that Kingston and St Andrew remain the dominant parishes with a total of 425, while St Ann recorded the second highest, with 263.
"With regard to negligence, Kingston and St Andrew recorded 377, Manchester recorded 320, while Westmoreland recorded 266," added Gage-Grey.
She said that the CPFSA would soon roll out an '#everychilddeservesprotection' campaign to combat the rising number of incidents on the island.
"It is very disheartening to see how our children are treated. We are coming from the standpoint that there are various ways to discipline our children ... we are saying to parents that help is here, don't give up," said Gage-Grey.