Tag: child abuse

Bangladeshi arrested for alleged rape attempt of 13 year-old girl

Police have arrested a Bangladeshi man who allegedly attempted to rape a 13 year-old girl in Eydhafushi, Baa Atoll.

Police Lance Corporal Abdul Majeed Moosa told Minivan News that police were called about the incident this morning at 2:30am.

”He was been arrested early this morning,” Moosa said. ”We can’t give more information as the investigation has not been concluded yet.”

The Bangladeshi man was 22 years-old, he added.

Local newspaper Haveeru reported that the Bangladeshi man entered the girl’s room at midnight while she was asleep and attempted to rape her.

According to Haveeru she bit his finger and he left. The man was naked when he entered the girl’s house, Haveeru reported according to sources.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Child Abuse Prevention Society to hold workshops for parents

Local NGO, the Child Abuse Prevention Society (CAPS), will lead a series of educational workshops and camps for parents on the prevention of child abuse in the Maldives in conjunction with the Juvenile Justice Unit, Society for Women against Drugs, and Maldives Police Service.

Vice President Dr Mohamed Waheed launched the programme at a function held at Aarah on Saturday afternoon, expressing concern over the prevalence of child abuse in the Maldives.

Noting that legal framework, although basic, to stop child abuse was in place, he underscored that a positive relationships within the family and between parents and children were as important as legal system to prevent all forms of violence against children.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

HRCM investigating leak of child molestation allegations against MP

President of Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) Maryam Azra has said that the commission has begun an internal investigation to find out the source of a story published in local newspaper Haveeru that the commission was investigating an MP regarding child molestation.

Minivan News understands that Haveeru removed the story from its website this afternoon.

When Minivan News queried Azra as whether the commission was investigating such a case, she replied “I do not know.”

”We are trying to find out who it was that has told Haveeru so,” she said.

Haveeru had quoted an official at HRCM as saying that a child molestation case related to a MP had been filed at commission, which was investigating alongside police.
The official declined to reveal the name of the MP, said Haveeru.

Spokesperson of HRCM Ahmed Rilwan told Minivan News that he would “have check whether such a case was reported to the commission.”

”The statement given to Haveeru by whomever was not an official statement,” he said.

A police spokesperson said police had no comment on the matter.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

One in seven Maldivian secondary students have been sexually abused, finds 2009 report

Almost one in seven children of secondary school age in the Maldives have been sexually abused at some time in their lives, according to an unpublished 2009 study on violence against children.

Rates of sexual abuse for girls are almost twice as high than for boys at 20 percent – one in five girls have been sexually abused – while the figure for boys was 11 percent. Girls are particularly at risk in the capital Male’, the report found.

The National Study of Violence Against Children, produced by UNICEF and the Ministry of Gender and Family and conducted by global research firm TNS, was heavily cited at last week’s Conference on Child Protection held at Bandos.

The stud – currently unofficial – is the first large-scale national study on the issue of physical and emotional punishment against children in the Maldives, interviewing almost 17,035 people in 2500 households as well as 2000 children in schools.

The study found that 47 percent of Maldivian children under the age of 18 have undergone physical or emotional punishment at home, school or in the community.

“The use of emotional punishment is considerably wide-spread and is also supported by the
parents’ beliefs that this is an effective way of teaching children the proper behaviour,” the report found.

Boys were more susceptible to physical punishment while large numbers of girls at secondary school level reported emotional punishment. Eight percent of school students, mostly boys, reported physical punishment from their school teachers.

Physical violence was more common among students attending secondary school in the atolls, with one in four reporting they had been hit by adults or other children during the past year. The figure for Male’ was 14 percent.

30 percent of children at secondary school reported being hit by at least one of their caregivers, while 21 percent said at object had had been used to do this.

A quarter of all carefivers said they believed that physical punishment had a positive effect on the rearing of children..

Furthermore, “children who suffer from a handicap – however light – have experienced
significantly more emotional punishment than children without such handicaps,” the report said.

The study also revealed a lingering distrust of authorities and their ability to deal with issues relating to physical or sexual abuse of children.

“When aware of a case of abuse in the community, the majority [of respondents] chose to not
inform the authorities, not [to] cause any trouble and/or due to limited belief in the efficiency of
the system.”

The report identified that despite high awareness of the issue, the cultural background of the Maldivia society “does not particularly prohibit emotional or physical punishment of children.” Efforts to increase the level of discussion were “hampered by the notion that such events should be solved in the home and not discussed publicly.”

Resolution of cases within the legal system was a particular change for the Maldives, especially cases involving child sexual abuse.

“The victim itself might turn out to be made liable for such an event and might be subjected itself to penal proceedings if the perpetrator does not plead guilty or four witnesses for the prosecution cannot be found,” the report noted.

It urged the education of caregivers as to the negative impact of violence against children, and highlighted particular discrepencies in the education system.

“Over 30 percent of teachers in the Maldives are untrained because 80 percent of staff training costs are transport related. In a country where 70 percent of the population lives on islands far from the capital, and where transport among islands can be prohibitively expensive, many children are at the risk of being invisible,” the report warned.

The report also produced some interesting demographic findings about the structure of the Maldivian families. In 24 percent of cases, a child’s male caregiver is not their biological father – in seven percent of cases, this role is performed by an older brother, and only rarely (two percent) by a stepfather or uncle. 87 percent of children have their biological mother as a caregiver.

A quarter of all children reported health difficulties. The majority of these concerned problems seeing, and to a lesser extent, “walking or climbing stairs”.

Domestically, arguments between children and their caregivers in the home revolve around fairly universal themes: watching TV (10 percent), household chores (10 percent), homework (12 percent), and staying up late (seven percent).

The main source of domestic arguments for girls were household chores (15 percent) – the second highest source of friction for boys was hairstyle (12 percent).

The 24 hour toll-free Maldives Child Helpline is available on 1412.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

UNICEF urges support for “overwhelmed” social services

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has praised developments in the reporting of child abuse cases in the Maldives, but is concerned at the challenges posed to “overwhelmed” social services.

Mohamed Naeem, a UNICEF Child Protection Officer based in the Maldives, told Minivan News that although he believed developments in the area of child protection were proving “quite promising”, greater collaboration with members of the public, NGOs and government authorities remained key challenges ahead.

The claims were made as a number of stakeholders from across the Maldivian child protection system met at Bandos Island Resort and Spa last week to try and outline a programme on how to best cooperate on improving the welfare of children in the country, particularly in far flung island communities.

In a speech delivered at the Conference on Child Protection, Ron Pouwels, UNICEF Regional Advisor for Child Protection told the audience assembled at Bandos that outlining a strategy against violence towards children on a national level represented important societal developments.

“Across countries, many challenges remain and violence against children is still often accepted as a lawful practice in the education system, as a form of sentencing by judicial bodies and as a disciplinary measure in care institutions,” he said. “The gap between law and practice also remains wide and challenging. Protective legislation needs to be enforced, permeate the work of institutions and shape the training and ethical standards of professionals.”

Figures taken from an unpublished UNICEF report conducted back in 2008 to study violence against Maldivian children reported that abuse of minors was found to exist across wide sections of Maldives society, both at home and in school – as well as the wider community.

The report claimed that eight percent of student respondents had apparently been hit by a teacher, children with disabilities were found to come under higher risk of receiving physical punishment and girls faced a high risk of being sexually abused, particularly in the capital of Male’.

The findings also reported that eleven percent of boys in the study and 20 percent of girls were believed to have been sexually abused at least once in their life.

Looking ahead

Mohamed Naeem said at present there were no comparative figures on how the child abuse situation had changed in the country since 2008, though he believed there had been improvements in the reporting and monitoring of child abuse in its different forms at the very least.

“Cases of reporting child abuse is up immensely, however this has brought additional challenges that need to be faced,” he said. “With a growing number of cases being reported, social services are being overwhelmed and need to be strengthened.”

Naeem said that a key consideration in bolstering the country’s child protection would be in the provision of more support from local communities and government agencies to social services.

The UNICEF Child Protection Officer claimed that existing initiatives such as Child Protection Committees made up of public citizens who liaised with social services from islands where they did not have a presence were strong examples of the type of collaboration the organization hoped to see.

Naeem claimed that the Child Protection Committees model could be adopted by NGOs and government agencies to maintain a nationwide network focusing on child protection – an area UNICEF has said it will be actively supporting.

In light of this month’s local council elections, Naeem added that decentralised councils and governance were a further positive opportunity to install monitoring and protection systems to benefit young people.

“There are a lot of challenges that would remain in terms of getting such systems up and goin,g” he said. “However, the situation in terms of preventing child abuse is quite different since 2001, I think it’s quite promising.”

Beyond general optimism in terms of developments in national child protection, Naeem said that another key challenge remained for UNICEF and authorities in trying to identify children who were seen as being most vulnerable to possible abuse in society.

The Child Protection Officer claimed that although actions plan were being drawn up, difficulties remained in pinpointing vulnerable groups.

“This could involve cases where children are away from their families for education reasons, have disabilities, or come from single parent families or environments of drug abuse,” he said.

The Conference on Child Protection was held as UNICEF and its partners announced the allocation of US$1.72 million to promote children’s rights in the Maldives as part of a country-wide programme outlining development between 2011 and 2015.

In a statement, UNICEF said that activities identified in the 2011 plan include improving the legislative framework for child rights, strengthening the evidence base for policy planning, and improve capacity of government to deliver improved quality health care and water and sanitation services.

Support will also be provided to ensure enhanced national capacity to deliver inclusive and child friendly education, and to scale up services to protect the most vulnerable children and women from violence. UNICEF will also partner with civil society organizations and the media to enhance their capacity for active monitoring and reporting on children’s issues.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Man arrested for caging six year-old boy

Police have arrested a man for putting a six year-old boy in a cage, reports Manadhoo Live.

Manadhoo reported that the offender accused the boy of stealing a chicken from the cage, and locked him inside the cage as a punishment for the alleged offense. The man was not a relative of the boy, it added.

According to the paper, the man put called the police to report the theft of the chickens after he had caged the boy.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Mother arrested for mistreatment of child

Police have arrested a woman who for alleged mistreatment of her four year old child in Kulhudhufuhsi in Haa Dhaalu Atoll.

Police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam said the woman had her child tied up with rope when police officers attended the house.

”Police went to her house after receiving information that this was happening,” said Shiyam. ”We conducted a special joint operation with the police and Ministry of Health and arrested the woman.”

He said that the father of the child was not at home when police arrived.

Local media has reported that the 24 year-old woman had been keeping the boy tied to a window in the house, and that there were bruises and scars on his leg.

After the police arrested the woman the boy was taken to Kulhudhufushi hospital.

In an unrelated case last Thursday, a newborn baby was found abandoned near the Wataniya telecommunications tower in Hulhumale’.

According to police, the baby girl was taken to Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) and her condition has since improved.

The umbilical cord was reportedly still attached to the child when she was discovered by members of the public.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the father of the child was at home when police arrived. This has been amended.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Poster exhibition in Sultans Park to mark World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse

The NGO Advocating the Rights of Children (ARC) is hosting a poster exhibition in Sultans Park November 19 from 4pm to 6pm to mark World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse.

The posters displayed at the exhibition will consist of those received for the poster competition that ARC announced on 10 October 2010, on the theme “Against the many faces of child abuse”.

This poster competition and exhibition is held in association with Thilafushi Corporation and in partnership with United Artists of Maldives (UAM).

ARC will also be launching a holiday programme, including swimming and art, for children at the Kudakudhinge Hiyaa orphanage on November 20, the Universal Chidren’s Day.

The swimming programme will be conducted in conjunction the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF).

The NGO said it hoped both the swimming and art lessons would “give the children more self confidence as well as give them something meaningful and fun to look forward to, especially during the holidays when schools are closed.”

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)