The Child Care and Protection Agency (CPA) has received over 2,700 reports of abuse between January and October this year and found that the perpetrators were biological parents and step-parents in 85% of cases.
Speaking at the CPA’s annual staff conference, held almost Thursday, CPA Director Ann Greene said of the 2,761 reports received and investigated, the agency found that mothers were the offenders in 51% of ‘ r cases, fathers in 26%, and step-parents in 8%. Grandparents, siblings, relatives, strangers and others committed criminals in the rest of the cases.
Neglect was the highest reported type of abuse, followed by sexual abuse, while Region One recorded the highest prevalence rate for all categories of child abuse, with 17.8 per 1,000 children, followed by Region Seven with 15.2 per 1,000 children and Region 3 with 15.1 per 1,000 children.