Martha Dismont, the executive director of Family Centre, has described Andrew and David Bascome’s revelation of being sexually abused as “monumental”, emphasising that “we as a community can no longer hide these problems”.

She said the recent announcement by footballers of molestation during their childhood were of “utmost significance as so many similar problems have been kept hidden”.

As in many communities, Ms Dismont said that victims in Bermuda did not generally feel comfortable in seeking counselling for these incidents or reporting them at all.

“We commend individuals like Mr Bascome who felt that he had enough ‘safe surroundings’ and friends to support him to reveal what clearly has been a source of emotional pain for him for many years,” she said.

Ms Dismont noted that in 2010, the Inter-Agency Committee for Children and Families, an association of social service providers, conducted a survey of more than 50 social service providers asking for a list of the reasons that clients seek out services. It was revealed that the most common reason given for seeking services was “unhealthy relationships due to multi-generational unaddressed trauma — emotional and abusive issues that have remained unaddressed, untreated, and unresolved due to the lack of proper treatment”.

“As social service providers,” she continued, “we have worked to protect the confidentiality of the individual and the family within treatment. However, we have always been concerned that the numbers that have come forward for treatment are likely small compared to the number that is unreported, or untreated in our small community.

“We will never know that number until more individuals feel comfortable speaking out, reporting the offence, and seeking treatment for the trauma that has occurred.

“Our responsibility is to provide education and awareness, to treat victims and perpetrators, and to protect the individual victim through confidential processes. The responsibility of our community is to help to prevent these offences from occurring and to offer safe environments to report. It is not unusual for communities of this size, and particularly for a small island tourist community, to want to hide the problem but ultimately it is not healthy. Our best response is to deal with it and address the challenges head on.”

As such, Ms Dismont stressed that organisations such as Saving Children and Revealing Secrets, and those that place emphasis on the importance of being diligent about the care and protection of children should remain a priority for Bermuda.

“Our lack of safe and nurturing environments can be an offence all by itself,” Ms Dismont said. “We place a priority on the care and protection of children, when we look squarely at the types of environments that we have created and consider changing them. These revelations offer the opportunity for healing, treatment and policy change that prevents the recurrence.

“We make the care of children a priority when we require youth programmes to have the best practices in place, such as ensuring young people are never placed in isolated environments with only one adult present, and we require supervision of older youth caring for younger children. If we are to honour Mr Bascome’s courage, we will ensure that no other young person suffers as he has suffered, and we make the protection and care of children and their families, a community priority.”

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