The 'dark figures' of child sexual abuse

The editorial of The Times of April 4 asked specifically how the Foundation for Social Welfare Services reached the conclusion that statistics on sexually exploited children do not reflect the actual extent of the phenomenon.

Firstly, there exists no official systematic data gathering or national register in the social and health care sector combined, on sexually exploited children in Malta. Records are organised on different levels, mostly decentralised, and are seldom shared between the different participants in the field, for the sake of adhering to the Data Protection Act and respective internal policies. The objective of the Childoscope Malta report (carried out in all EU member states) serves to obtain an academic picture of the actual extent of the phenomena of missing and sexually exploited children in each EU country.

Cases of sexually abused minors during 2004 logged by various service providers amounted collectively to 349 cases (police (39), Appogg Agency (221), Child Safety Services (81) and the Office of the Commissioner for Children (8)). Each of these service providers conferred that most cases logged at one's end may also have received service by another local service provider. To give an example, the cases handled by the police would have gone through the Appogg services, and the cases logged by the Commissioner for Children would have been referred to social work service for assistance.

To facilitate coordination and strengthen collaboration, Appogg Agency held a Round Table last February specifically focusing on such need. As an outcome of the two days' discussion at which all major stakeholders were present, the following is being proposed: that authorities address the urgent need to institute a central registry whereby cases of sexual abuse must be logged on mandatory basis; the consolidation of networking and collaboration between all service providers; and the need of a national policy specifically dealing with cases of missing and sexually exploited children.

This Round Table brought together representatives from the ministries directly involved in the fight against child abuse, namely the Ministry for the Family and Social Solidarity and the Ministry for Investment, Industry and Information Technology, the Commissioner for Children, the Commissioner for Data Protection, law enforcement, the director general of the National Statistics Office, the magistrate who presides over court cases of child abuse, heads of governmental and non-governmental social work oriented agencies and three experts from Brussels working specifically in this field.

The common understanding among all these stakeholders was precisely that the figures quoted were only the tip of the iceberg, as actually many other cases are not accounted for. Substantiating this argument are Appogg's child sexual abuse cases referred to its services, which increased by five per cent from 2004 to 2005, from 13 per cent to 18 per cent of the global 1,080 referred cases of child abuse. Over and above, Appogg's Child Protection Services had a waiting list of 500 cases of child abuse as at the end of March, 2006 (which incorporates various types of abuse) awaiting investigation.

As already stated above, the current situation is that cases dealt with by individual professionals are not recorded and registered centrally. Thus a counsellor, psychologist or physician doing private practice who assists and supports a child who has been sexually abused, is not obliged to log such case anywhere, and if one feels obliged to do so there is no official centralised point to log them to as yet. This, partly, answers why the report concludes that there are "dark figures" which hinder knowing the actual extent of the phenomenon. All stakeholders believe that there are also cases of child abuse who, for various reasons such as fear, shyness, diffidence, mistrust or other, do not request any help from any institution, and thus could not be accounted for and assisted.

Thus, the 349 cases collectively recorded during the year 2004, even though being an alarming amount calls for further strengthening of the the services provided to support and assist each single case of abuse, could not be taken as an academic figure as the actual extent is still unknown for reasons expressed above.