KNOWING a child is being abused and not reporting it is a criminal offence, police said yesterday.
With reports of child abuse on the increase and sexual abuse making up more than a third of all cases, speaking out plays a vital role in clamping down on the phenomenon, a senior officer said.
“Everyone is obliged to report child abuse if they know about it. You’d think that people should know this but you’d be surprised how many people don’t know it’s a criminal offence and don’t say anything. They don’t like to get involved and say it’s not my business,” Superintendent B’ Costas Veis, who heads the police’s domestic violence and child abuse bureau, told the Sunday Mail.
Veis said the domestic violence centre’s recent claims of an increase in child abuse reports in recent years were accurate.
“However, the figures that we have and those that they have differ because they mainly deal with domestic violence between couples, rather than children. Also, sometimes they might get a child abuse report but have no other information to pass on to us, so it doesn’t get recorded in our figures. Other times the abuse is reported directly to police and they have no contact with the centre, so they don’t have a record of it in their numbers either.”
The superintendent said there had been a steady increase in child abuse reports over the past three years, with a 33 per cent increase from 2004 to 2005, and an alarming 78 per cent increase from 2005 to 2006.
He said that in real numbers this translated to 27 boys and 27 girls in 2004, 43 boys and 77 girls in 2005, and 55 boys and 80 girls in 2006.
“Of all domestic violence reports, child abuse makes up 11 per cent,” he said.
“People are definitely reporting more cases but we can’t know or assume that this means there is an increase in real cases.”
He added that between the years 2004 to 2005, of all reported child abuse cases, 36 per cent concerned sexual abuse. The remainder of cases was predominantly made up of physical abuse reports, he said.
“Cases involving neglect are normally handled by the Social Welfare Services but in some cases where the neglect is extreme it is also a criminal offence.”
For example keeping a child locked up would be considered a criminal offence, whereas not feeding a child properly was considered neglect and referred to the Social Welfare Services, he explained.
Based at the police headquarters, Veis said the department was responsible for the co-ordination and supervision of domestic violence and child abuse reports and also acted as an advisory body with police, as well as other non-police agencies.
With regards to child abuse cases, he said the department was, among other things, responsible for recording each case reported to police.
“Cases are normally reported to the CID or a police station which then investigate the allegations. Sometimes, the cases come directly to us but because our role is not to investigate the reports; we refer them to the relevant department whether it’s the district CID or a police station.”
In very serious cases, he said the bureau co-operated with investigators.
“For instance, one area we would be involved in is if a judge needs a video-recorded statement from the minor. One of our staff would either take the statement or at least be present to supervise when the statement is being taken, because we have the technology, know how and experience in this area,” Veis said.
The officer said the bureau also acted as a point of contact between police and other services involved in the handling of child abuse cases such as the Social Welfare Services.
