Audit report reveals that number of child abuse cases are piling up

An audit report has revealed that state institutions are not dealing with cases of child abuse accordingly.

The performance report by the Auditor General’s Office on state institutions dealing with cases of child abuse has now been published and looks at the cases received by the Police, Gender Ministry and Family Protection Authority from 2014 to 2016 and how they were dealt with by the authorities.

The report noted the lengthy amount of time taken by the Ministry to deal with referral case assessments and investigations. An average of 45 days was taken by the Ministry to complete the referral forms for 26 of the 54 cases taken as audit samples. This is a lengthy period of time compared to the seven days stated in the SOP of the ministry to complete the task.

Gender Ministry had informed that duration was sometimes due to difficulties in obtaining information.

However, the report also noted the lack of a prioritizing procedure for cases. It also noted that there were cases that took two months just to assign employees. The report then highlighted the lengthy time taken by Police to investigate such cases when the investigations of these cases should have been completed within 10 days. Some of these cases have taken almost three years.

Some employees were also assigned 20 cases at once, which is against the regulations set for the work. The Family Protection Authority also failed to keep track and maintain information on these cases, according to the report.

The report noted that 2,491 child abuse cases were recorded from 2014 to 2016 and around 1975 cases were reported to Police. 142 children were also taken into state care by the end of 2016, according to the report.