By: Staff Writer
April 29, 2025
A new United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report said that adults in the Eastern Caribbean see young people who come into conflict with the law as needing held and care.
The report, Protecting our Children, notes one of the key findings from the wide-ranging study commissioned by UNICEF and conducted by the Caribbean Development Research Services (CADRES) that explored public attitudes towards corporal punishment, child sexual abuse, and juvenile offending across eight Eastern Caribbean countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, the British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
The report also said: “63 per cent of respondents believe that greater efforts must be made to support children and young people who commit criminal offences. Yet, when asked about accountability, 38 per cent saw the children themselves as responsible for their actions, while 31 per cent viewed society as having failed them.
“On the matter of parental responsibility, 15 per cent of respondents said parents were fully responsible for their children’s offending behaviour, and 50 per cent said they were partially responsible. Encouragingly, there was strong support for rehabilitative approaches – such as community service supervised by government agencies, parenting support programmes, vocational training, career counselling, and community sports initiatives.”
Speaking at the launch of the report at UN House Barbados, UNICEF Representative for the Eastern Caribbean Area, Mr AbdulKadir Musse, said the findings would help guide the development of evidence-informed responses to child protection.
“These findings help us to… meet people where they are and guide policymakers in how to build – or course correct – policies, strategies and programmes aimed at reducing violence against children in its many forms,” said Mr Musse.
However, the UN children’s agency head, also flagged deeply troubling findings, particularly in relation to child sexual abuse. A quarter of all respondents reported knowing a child who had been sexually abused.
“Although many respondents showed a good grasp of what constitutes such abuse, in some countries only one-third identify sending a child pornography as sexual abuse. We still have much work to do,” he said, also highlighting emerging risks like grooming, stalking and cyberbullying.
The report also noted the 8,000 children than migrated to Trinidad and Tobago from Venezuela and UBICEF’s efforts to mitigate the risk that they may be exposed to.