By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

CHILD abandonment has become more “prevalent” in recent years, according to Social Services and Urban Development Minister Obie Wilchcombe.

He said while officials are still reviewing child abuse numbers, they believe the abandonment trend is related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the economy.

“We believe it’s all related to the economy, COVID, all connected, but the reality is many children are being left behind,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a Child Protection Month event yesterday. “They’ve been abandoned. They’re being delivered and just being left behind.”

Mr Wilchcombe pointed to Grand Bahama’s economy.

“We talk about COVID and we talked about Dorian, but the truth is it’s been happening since Hurricane Francis, Jeanne, Wilma from 2004. That economy has not regained its strength. We have to fix the economy. We have to create opportunities for many who don’t have and find themselves in dilemma and the only way to deal with a situation sometimes they believe is to run away from it but we have to tell people that’s not the way to deal with matters.”

He also said the cases of abuse, particularly sexual abuse, were “unacceptable” and no country should accept it.

“We will take very strong measures to deal with it. The reality is the attorney general is now drafting and has completed the drafts for new legislation which we intend to introduce as a part of our aggressive legislative agenda in the next several weeks.”

Mr Wilchcombe also revealed officials expect the numbers to increase at the Simpson Penn School for Boys as opposed to the Willie Mae Pratt Centre for Girls.

Asked if he has seen an increase of children being wards of the state, the minister confirmed this, but could not give an exact figure.

“We do expect the numbers to increase even more in the Simpson Penn as opposed to the Willie Mae Pratt - I was being briefed yesterday. It’s all related (to) the social dilemma that we find ourselves in. Many young people are finding themselves in (a) challenge and fight for themselves and finding themselves involved in circumstances and situations that are unacceptable to us,” he said yesterday.

“We have to find a way to get them. We have to reach them. As I’ve said before we have to arrest the mind before they commit the crime, so we’re finding ways to deal with that but the truth is that’s where we are and we are not (going to) shy away from the reality. We’re (going to) fight it directly.”

He said the government is also looking at moving away from having a juvenile court to a single magistrate to hear these matters.

“We can’t assemble a panel, so we are likely to move away from the juvenile court and have a single magistrate.”

He also commented about the backlash his minister of state, Lisa Rahming, received over remarks she made over the weekend.

She told reporters that she did not entirely blame the child victim of a 40-year-old man who received four years in a plea deal for unlawful sexual intercourse, adding she believed the minor was just “misguided.”

“I would say that she was misguided,” Ms Rahming said on Saturday. “She was misled, she was a minor and that doesn’t mean that minors cannot make good decisions. What I look at it is, if a child is placed in a vulnerable position anything is likely to happen. Think of when adults are placed in vulnerable positions. They sometimes make irrational decisions and so I looked at it as she was misguided.”

In response to the outcry, Mr Wilchcombe said: “I’m not sure exactly what happened. I was in another place, but I’m sure the minister knew what she wanted to say and I’m sure she explained as best she could.”

The Tribune tried to get a comment from Ms Rahming, but she was unable to speak at the time.