Back at school facing battles

Dr Gabrielle Jamela Hosein

THE START OF the school term is full of mixed emotions for children.

I dropped Ziya off to begin Form 2 of secondary school with all the advice and positive words that families give.

As always, however, it’s important to remember children without safe families, who experience bullying, are at risk of self-harm and have least access to services.

Regarding those without safe families in Trinidad, in the 2019 report of the Children’s Authority of TT (annual reports have not been published since then), the highest month of child-abuse reports is October 2018. This peak period follows the July-August holiday.

So we should be alert to children who may have experienced child abuse while out of school, in unsafe care and in conditions of sexual vulnerability over these vacation months.

About one in five (22 per cent) of the clients of the Children’s Authority were ten-13 years old. My daughter is 12. It’s an in-between age when children are transitioning into adolescence and appearing more independent and grown up. However, that transition can be deceptive because it is also an age of great uncertainty about rights, rules, power, shame, confidence and fear.

We should keep in mind that the highest group of reports are in relation to sexual abuse (22.6 per cent in CATT’s 2019 publication) and three times more girls than boys made such reports. The sexualisation of adolescent girls, so well known to us in the Caribbean, increases girls’ risk of predation precisely in these years.

As schools open, let’s not be naïve about this national reality, with the most reports typically from the Tunapuna to Laventille areas of high density (as rural areas with limited services will make fewer reports). As well, we should remember that witnessing violence in families, such as between parents or other adults, is also a form of violence against children.

It’s worth reiterating that for another year the Ministry of Education has no systematic, national approach to educating children about child abuse, and particularly child sexual abuse (around which there is the greatest shame and silence), even though this can help them to identify harm, increase disclosure, and even better protect themselves.

Regarding bullying, school fights marked last year’s transition to school after the pandemic. These fights were also related to children and adolescents’ online lives, where cyber-bullying also takes place.

UNICEF’s 2021 review of violence against children in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) notes that bullying and emotional violence are more prevalent in early adolescence for both boys and girls. Boys may experience more physical violence in school, including armed violence, whereas girls experience more exclusionary bullying, such as being left out and having rumours spread about them. Incidentally, emotional violence is one of the least reported and poorly understood forms of violence in children’s lives.

When children suffer the effects, and show poor behaviour and school performance, parents’ frustrated or disappointed response may be further violence, such as verbal threats, insult and beating.

Homophobic violence, for example calling boys gay to insult them (regardless of their sexual orientation), is also a common form of attack against youthful masculinity. Such a label is impossible for a boy to counter, for there is no way to prove one’s sexuality, particularly in early adolescence. When a fight occurs between a victim and a bully because of homophobia, we often fail to take such prejudice seriously. Indeed, at the highest levels of state and leadership, such expression of discrimination is still considered acceptable, with the costs paid by children.

Finally, self-harms such as cutting are among the top five causes of death among adolescents in TT. Suicide ideation and self-harm are related to witnessing or experiencing violence, growing up amidst armed conflict and gangs, child abuse and bullying. UNICEF reports that in 27 LAC countries, one in every three or four bullied students has thought about taking their own life.

Finally, community-level violence increases risk of violence by and against children, including at school and at home. If we fail to respond to societal violence, we fail to create safe schools.

To address these risks, we must challenge gender stereotypes and homophobia, reduce armed crime and the socio-economic disparities that led to so many children leaving school during the pandemic, integrate migrant children, and strengthen child protection systems. The Ministry of Education should also be able to show its overdue national-level, violence-prevention approach.

Wish them well. Vulnerable children are back at school facing battles of and on their own.

Diary of a mothering worker

Entry 514

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