Continued from Saturday's newspaper The PLP's Ewart Brown praised the report and the fact it was mostly researched and written using Bermudian talent. The Government he said, should be congratulated on using the PLP approach.

Concentrating on the medical aspects of the report, Dr. Brown pointed out 12 of 15 doctors surveyed came out strongly in favour of mandatory reporting of abuse.

Along with their colleagues in Canada and the US, Bermudian doctors are prepared to accept the responsibility.

He slammed however, Government's present arrangement of using a pathologist to assess cases of child abuse.

Nothing personal against the person or the profession he said, but pathologists deal mainly with dead people or tissue from the living.

Abuse victims need compassion, cultural understanding, and the warmth of someone who experienced with treating the living. He also slammed the absence of "a safe place'' where child victims can go after treatment.

One excellent recommendation of the report was for the regulation of professional caregivers, he said. Too many "quacks'' are operating on the Island and adding to the victimisation process.

Meanwhile the report's call for greater "ethnic'' representation of frontline caregivers was a long overdue recognition that more black doctors are needed.

"This Government has had a history of tip toeing and tap dancing around the issue of race of race and I congratulate them for having the testicular strength for even mentioning race,'' he said to laughter from the PLP bench.

Minister of Information and Technology John Barritt also paid tribute to the report and said it raised the important question of what constitutes abuse.

Meanwhile the report sheds a new light on how casually one can become a parent. "We require a licence for driving on the road, but anyone at a certain age can become a parent with absolutely no training,'' he said.

Mr. Barritt also cautioned that responsibility for child rearing shift remain with the individual. "When you set up an apparatus to solve a problem, you have to be careful you don't set up a bureaucracy that sustains the problem.'' There is a role for Government he said, but individuals must also bear their responsibility.

Devonshire North's Paula Cox called child abuse a "tumour'' that must be eradicated, and said she supports the UK 1989 Children's Act, which puts the rights of the child first.

She too supported recommendations calling for professional training and the repeal of outdated legislation in Bermuda.

And while talk is essential, action is more important, she said. The PLP wants to see an implementation process: "No more, no way, no place,'' she said in challenging Government to act on its words.

"What we're saying is we want to change the victims into victors.'' The UBP's Grace Bell picked up on that theme and said Government would be taking action on the report "post haste.'' "The children of this country need more advocates, more Sheila Coopers, more Crown Counsels, more parents, everyone to get together and put an end to these heinous crimes.

Pembroke East's Nelson Bascombe told the House "deviant behaviour and sexual abnormalities'' appear early in Bermuda's history...

Mr. Bascome said there was a definite need to train people dealing with child abuse.

He added that there should be a proper system to handle referrals of people to the appropriate individuals who provide treatment.

He noted that there had been an increase in the number of women working which had created more "latchkey kids''.

With this, he continued, it was more important for men to take their rightful place in their families and help keep the family unit together.

Cultural differences were important to note, said Mr. Bascome, as there were members of the public who treated their children in a fashion which they did not see as wrong.

Degrees of child abuse should be reported so people could see what was wrong in the treatment of a child, he suggested.

Mr. Bascome pointed out the differences between male victims of abuse and females. Males, he said, were more likely to hold the subject in while women felt a little freer to discuss it.

He said he wished the report had looked more at abuse in prisons as there were problems there that had not been addressed.

In closing, he said: "We must move back to a moral ground. We need a system that will look at our young people and mould them into the citizens we want them to be.'' Labour, Home Affairs and Public Safety Minister Quinton Edness said the report "provides us with the opportunity, if we choose to take it, to give an overall priority to the children in this society''.

"Somehow we lost that. we've got to get it back.'' He said the agencies working daily to help children had formed a fundamental framework from which the Country could work to reduce child abuse.

It was a very serious problem, he continued, and to fight it, the community and Government had to move together in concert.

But it also had to be a project that people felt comfortable participating in and that would not happen if the subject was politicised.

Mr. Edness said the report emphasised the need for resources including trained staff.

And it recommended that a proper training programme be set up utilising Government and community agencies both here in Bermuda and away.

He said there was also a need for a massive public education programme.

This would take some doing, he admitted, as the subject was very delicate and sensitive which would require people with great expertise to communicate it.

Amendments to legislation were also looming, continued Mr. Edness, particularly where they dealt with the subject of mandatory reporting and overseas examples where this was in place would need to be looked at.

Prevention and treatment programmes were also required but he warned that these would be expensive. When discussing how to achieve the recommendations in the report there also had to be financial consideration, he added.

Shadow Minister of Labour, Home Affairs and Public Safety Alex Scott said at the core of the report's discussion was the care and well being of the Island's young people.

It was a very difficult and important task of policing to take action against the person who was abusing someone and to provide protection for the children being abused.

The Police had to make sure that they did not expose the child to any further abuse while they carried out their investigation, said Mr. Scott.

There needed to be a care giver, he said, who would act as a buffer between the Police and the victim.

This was one of the merits of having a permanent team made up of Police and Child and Family Services members which would work in the best interests of the child.

Training was also key, he continued, so Police officers could evaluate individual situations while being aware of Bermuda's ethnic and cultural diversity.

Some situations would be marginal and the Police could not afford to jump to conclusions, pointed out Mr. Scott.

On the same note, it was essential that everyone involved on a team dealing with child abuse were trained and their investigation had to be swift so as not to put undue stress on the family unit.

Paget West MP Tim Smith (UBP) said the day's chorus of condemnation against child abuse was very important to the community.

But he said the report was not just about child abuse as it also reflected on parenting and the lack of good parenting around the Island.

The report would act as a yardstick by which future issues concerning child abuse were measured and would help increase awareness. he continued.

This was the silver lining in the dark cloud of child abuse as awareness would help erase the community's denial that there was a problem.

Mr. Smith said the first three years of a child's life were its most important for development purposes and the way the child was raised impacted directly on what sort of person the child would become.

He said prevention strategies could have been looked at more closely in the report and could have dealt with parenting issues -- including those of single parents -- and substance abuse which he saw as key factors to overcome in the war against child abuse.

Shadow Works and Engineering, Parks & Housing Minister Stanley Morton said every person that has a child is not necessarily a fit and proper parent.

And sometimes, he continued, it was necessary to remove the child from their environment for his or her own safety and these children were Government's responsibility.

Mr. Morton pointed out that child abuse took many different forms and children could suffer many different types of injury when they were abused.

He said these cases of abuse were more likely to happen in overcrowded conditions and this was something Government should consider dealing with.

Mr. Morton then added child sexual abuse was carried out in the family, by parents, relatives and friends.

"All kinds of strange things happen'' he said, adding parents need to be more enlightened.

Churches also have to play a part: "These little bits of assistance can help in a big way.'' Minister of Tourism David Dodwell paid tribute to the taskforce, saying its finding gave pause to think such horrific crimes could actually happen here.

But there was hope that awareness of the issue was growing. An indication that was so could be seen on the Internet, where resources on child abuse were "staggering.'' While everyone has focused on prevention meanwhile, Mr. Dodwell said communication and awareness of the issue was also critical.

And he threw his support behind one of the report's recommendations for a community awareness programme, a programme involving research, design, implementation, and review of objectives.

Calling for a community partnership, Mr. Dodwell told the House: "We didn't inherit the Island from our parents, we borrowed it from our children.'' It's a question he said, of protecting what's been built on Bermuda.

The PLP's Lois Browne Evans however lashed out at the Minister and Government, accusing them of waffling "with incoherent mumbling.'' On an issue as critical as child abuse the Minister comes to the House and tables a take-note motion, she said: "What specifically is the Government intending to do with this report.'' Saying she fears the report will die, Mrs. Browne Evans alleged opportunism on Government's part. Not until two recent high-profile court cases involving the death of children did Government bring the report to the House.

She also accused the UBP of allowing "all types of evil'' onto the Island, from television and satellite dishes to Playboy magazine.

Bermudian society has become corrupted with the philosophy of the abundant life she said, giving rise to social ills such as child abuse.

"The Minister should not be allowed to come here with his take-note motion and waffle. He should be giving a deadline and a cost breakdown. They should be alarmed by the report, not just read it.

"This is nothing but a shameful waste of taxpayers money,'' she said.

Minister of Education Jerome Dill said such petty politics should not overshadow the common ground that exists on both sides of the House.

And he described as erroneous the suggestion that Government has presided over the breakdown of the family.

He also addressed suggestions by some members that the Ministry of Education declined to participate in the taskforce, pointing out one the committee members was the Ministry's Head of Student Services.

Mr. Dill also defended his Ministry and its staff, agreeing with the report's assertion school counsellors are not properly trained to handle traumatic abuse situations.

But instead of trying to score cheap political points out the fact, the Opposition should take the high ground, should examine ways to put the training in place.

Meanwhile all Bermudians must accept responsibility for "burying their heads in the sand'' on the issue of child abuse, said Mr. Dill. Those days however are about to end.

As Government moved to implement the Tumim Report, so too would it move on the taskforce's report, he said.

Leader of the Opposition Jennifer Smith said the report was perhaps one of the most important documents to come before the House and pledged the PLP would support it.

But she wondered where Government stood on the issue, given the absence of a formal Government response to the report.

She also found it a "trifle strange'' that a representative of the Ministry of Education would endorse a document that calls for an end to corporal punishment and is mildly critical of the Ministry's lack of involvement with the taskforce.

Given the inter-relationship between children and schools the lack of Ministry participation raises questions, she said.

Ms Smith noted that it was important that before teachers were required to take part in mandatory reporting, they had to be legally protected from instances when their allegations were not true.

She added a comprehensive approach was required to deal with the problem which had to be tackled on different levels at the same time.

Also important to solving child abuse was the need for the adults they dealt with following the incident to be adults they could relate to.

This would help them foster a relationship with adults again and give them faith to confide in them, she said.

The public also needed to be made aware of the difference between discipline and corporal punishment so they would know when the line between the two was crossed.

Something must be done about child abuse now, Ms Smith concluded, because it was the eleventh hour and if there was no action the community would be impacted beyond imagination.

Environment, Planning and Natural Resources Minister Irving Pearman said the problem had been present in society for a long time and what was being seen now through the discussion of the issue was the society growing up.

Government had always been concerned, he continued, but the family had to acknowledge its responsibility.

Pearman: Everyone must make a greater effort People were simply passing the buck when they said that things would have been different if Government had done "x, y and z''.

Everyone had to make a greater effort, said Mr. Pearman, then they would find society moving in a positive direction rather than a negative direction.

The community could help the community better than a bureaucratic system could, he said.

Deputy Opposition Leader Eugene Cox said he was disappointed that there was no document from Government stating their purpose or plans.

It was a far reaching report, he contended, but he wanted to see what Government proposed to do but nothing had been forthcoming.

This suggested that Government was either winding down because it expected an election or that it was just drifting along.

He added that the cost of implementing the recommendations was also very important and he would be interested to hear what sort of costs were expected and how much of the report's recommendations would be implemented.

Premier Pamela Gordon said the Progressive Labour Party could not have it both ways.

When Government brought solutions to the House of Assembly before getting input from the Opposition, it was called arrogant.

When it brought issues to the House for input, it heard that it did not have a plan.

Ms Gordon pointed out that Government had already increased the staff at the Department of Child and Family Services by 50 percent which was recognised to be a necessary action whether the recommendations in the report were agreed upon or not.

This move was necessary, she continued, for the department to operate correctly, more efficiently and more effectively.

She added that an additional $500,000 had been earmarked in the Budget for the recommendations.

Government might not have appeared to have acted as quickly as it could have but that was because it had to be fiscally responsible.

"We would like these solutions to be implemented tomorrow or, actually, yesterday,'' said Ms Gordon.

To say child abuse was a Government problem was inaccurate, she continued.

It was neither a Government problem or an Opposition problem but a community problem and the community had now decided it was unacceptable.

Government had now received the Opposition's input and would now come back to the House with a plan of where it would go in the form of a white paper.

Shadow Environment, Planning and Natural Resources Minister Leon (Jimmy) Williams pointed out that child abuse came in many different forms and ruined peoples' lives.

It also did not involve females solely, he noted, but young men as well. "Our children are being raped,'' he said.

Parliamentarians had to set the guidelines because "politics make everything tick'' and Parliament was supreme.

"The buck stops here,'' said Mr. Williams, "we must protect the children.'' He stressed that the "house of prayer'' needed to be brought back to the children in this era of sex and violence as they needed a good Christian upbringing.