Opinion - ‘I am outraged’ |25 May 2021

Yes, I am outraged! Waking up on Monday morning with a message followed by a video of two under-aged boys having sex is not a normal thing to witness. Sharing the video to others is not normal and on top of that not legal. Just being shocked by the video and not alerting the authorities is not normal!

What is happening to our society? Are we becoming so selfish that we accept these blatant actions as if it does not concern us or even worse it is not ‘my child’? Who knows what can happen to ‘my child’? No one can predict that.

Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunties, grandparents ‒ wake up please!

Wake up as it is already too late for many of our children. I use the determiner OUR children as according to an African proverb, “it takes a village to raise a child”. The small boy being abused, the abusive boy, or even the one filming are all part of our ‘family’ ‒ our society. They make Seychelles what it is today.

Why did the authorities not react immediately? Why should we wait until the matter is widely spread on social platforms or the videos shared (illegally) to many?

Why? So many whys are running through my head and I get more enraged! What can I do as a human being to help educate our society?

It is not the first time neither the last time will we see these videos. It is unfortunate that we are only seeing a glimpse of what is really happening at the very bottom of our society.

Child abuse has been the talk of the town for some years now, but do we know where to go, what to do and who should we report to? Many of us are unaware of how the system operates. It will be good to know how many cases of child abuse are being registered weekly.

In its 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Seychelles by the US Department of State it was clearly noted that, “Although the law prohibits physical abuse of children, child abuse was a problem. According to NGOs, physical abuse of children was prevalent. The strongest public advocate for young victims was a semi-autonomous agency, the National Council for Children. The law prohibits corporal punishment in schools. On May 19, the president signed an amendment to the Children’s Act that bans and criminalises corporal punishment of children and provides for two years’ imprisonment and a substantial monetary fine if a perpetrator is convicted.”

Regarding sexual exploitation of children, the same report noted that, “The penal code and other laws define a child as a person younger than age 18 and criminalise practices related to child pornography and the commercial sexual exploitation, sale, offering, and procurement for prostitution of children. The law provides for a sentence of up to 20 years’ imprisonment for conviction of producing or possessing child pornography, as well as for a first conviction of sexual assault on a child younger than age 15, and a minimum 28 years’ imprisonment for a second conviction within 10 years of the first conviction. The law prescribes penalties of up to 25 years’ imprisonment and a substantial monetary fine for conviction of child trafficking. In April the Supreme Court convicted three men on 26 charges including child trafficking, extortion, and possession of pornographic materials against 75 girls, sentencing the perpetrators to 45 years’ imprisonment.”

I still remember that this case created a lot of ‘talk’ but unfortunately to the abusers/offenders it was a ‘yes tande, no konpran’ scenario. We still see children being abused and cases are not being brought to justice out of fear of ‘ki dimoun pou dir’.

In May 2020, the Seychelles Child Law Reform Committee(CLRC) was established and it comprises experts from the judiciary, Attorney-General’s chambers, department of social affairs, Seychelles Police, National Council for Children and the Ministry for Education. The CLRC is chaired by Justice Dr Mathilda Twomey.

The CLRC is mandated, in accordance with detailed terms of reference, to review the existing legal framework applicable to children, and make recommendations for legal reform to enhance the legal protections afforded to children in line with Seychelles’ constitutional and international law obligations and international best practice. The CLRC is supported by a technical committee, and has engaged local and international experts since its establishment. It has received the continued support of newly elected President Wavel Ramkalawan.

The CLRC began its work in June 2020. A review of this nature is not a small task, and the priority for the CLRC was to identify key principles that would guide its work, which include:

● The promotion of “the best interests” of the child at all times;

• Ensuring privacy and anonymity for all victims;

● The adoption of a victim, non-discriminatory, centred approach;

• Ensuring all recommended laws and policies are consistent with the government’s legal obligations and reflect best practice;
• Criminalisation of all forms of harmful conduct committed against children through the recommendation of new offences not in Seychelles law and accommodation of offences committed through new technologies;
• A commitment to drafting clear and non-discriminatory legal provisions, that allow for empowerment, effective advocacy, strong policy and practices, consistency in application and encourage positive shifts in attitude and behaviour at a societal and cultural level;
• Incorporating inter-sectoral and inter-disciplinary evidence based recommendations;
• Ensuring the voices, views and experience of young and vulnerable persons inform recommendations; and
• Ensuring the protection of constitutional rights in all recommendations.

Finally in 2020, we became more conscious of such a committee and I really hope that we all come together to help accomplish the goals of the CLRC.

It is good to remind ourselves that we are all living in a small community and by nature we are supposed to protect each other. Children are vulnerable beings. We would be in need of conventions, committees, and laws to help children better protect themselves.

Is it not my right to come forward and advocate for the protection of each child in Seychelles? If not me, if not you, who else?

Vidya Gappy

Copyright: https://sites.google.com/site/helpforabusechildern/how-to-stop-child-abuse