BishopAccountability.org
	'Deal with Sex Abuse First' Nation Newspaper April 12, 2008 http://www.nationnews.com/story/319108649022801.php LEGISLATION TO ADDRESS and deal with the high incidence of sexual abuse in the home should be the first item on the front burner of the country's new Democratic Labour Party (DLP) administration. That's according to the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Barbados, Father Harcourt Blackett, who is appealing to Minister of Family, Youth, Sport and the Environment, Dr Esther Byer-Suckoo, to promote the appropriate implementation of legislation which would not only address sexual abuse in the home, but also "irresponsible parents in general who require serious counselling". Local statistical data accumulated by doctors and counsellors and released to the public in recent years has confirmed that one in three women, many of them children or teenagers, had been sexually abused in the home environment. "We have situations where parents are so irresponsible they leave their children to be dragged up, rather than raised," lamented the priest during an interview with the SATURDAY SUN. His recommendations came on the heels of a desire by the National HIV/AIDS Commission to engage the help of Byer-Suckoo in bringing to Cabinet proposals for amended legislation to eliminate the current anomaly between the age of consent (16 years) and the age at which young people can seek medical services on their own without parental consent (18 years). "I am still not decided as to whether or not I would support such an amendment, especially if there is no requirement for a responsible adult to be available consistently to help and guide that 16-year-old. "On the one hand, I have had such young people come to me who had great concerns about their conditions and were suffering from tremendous anxiety because they had entered into risky situations," said the priest.
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