radical proposals to put an end to a crime "greatly under-reported''.

A "staggering'' number of Bermudian boys and girls are being battered and molested every day by people they know, the National Symposium on Children at Risk uncovered.

Topping a lengthy list of proposals was the amendment of the "broadly outdated'' 1943 Protection of Children Act to make it mandatory for local residents to report cases of child abuse.

The nearly 200 child-care professionals attending the two-day symposium last week also want: Corporal punishment banned from all schools.

Abuse-prevention programmes put in place in both primary and secondary schools. And parenting-skills classes taught in all secondary schools.

Regulation of all private and Government-run child care programmes and the revision of nursery school regulations to ensure high standards of child care.

Priority to be given to the collection and sharing of child abuse statistics from all available sources, including Police and social services.

Mandatory treatment for child abusers.

The establishment of a resource centre with walk-in counselling, a child abuse hotline and a safe house for abused children.

The reorganisation of child-related services to increase the prevention, detection and treatment of child abuse victims.

And the Coalition for the Protection of Children to set up a task force to work with Government to review and revise the 1943 Act, and come up with a media campaign to explain sexual abuse and where to get help.

Organiser Mrs. Sheelagh Cooper said the symposium had indicated a staggering number of youngsters were being physically and sexually abused.

She said 219 child molestation cases were reported to Police last year, but that was only the tip of the iceberg because not many are reported.

Mrs. Cooper said that if abuse-prevention programmes were taught in schools, sexually abused children would "come out of the woodwork''.

"Such programmes would be a major source of detection,'' she said.

A speaker at the symposium said he believed a mandatory reporting law would also flush out cases of child abuse. Canadian lawyer Mr. Andrejs Berzins QC said that when his country introduced such a law several years ago, there was a dramatic surfacing of child abuse cases.

Mrs. Cooper said it was important to have all child-care services under one roof so young victims are not shuffled from place to place.

And she said corporal punishment in schools served only to send the message that it is all right for people in power to hurt others.

Mrs. Cooper said she was amazed at the amount of enthusiasm by those invited to speak and attend the symposium, which took her and the rest of the steering committee some six months to plan.

"I thought the recommendations were excellent and I was very impressed with the thoughtfulness and commitment the symposium seemed to generate,'' she said.

Afterwards, some 80 people signed up to join the Coalition for the Protection of Children, which she founded.

"I think people were really ready to come together in a collaborative effort to close the gap in services delivered to children at risk,'' she said.

Mrs. Cooper, a criminologist and boutique owner, said she was stirred to organise such a forum through her studies of prison inmates.

"There are a tremendous number of people in prison here who have committed violent and predatory offences -- much larger than should be for the size of our population,'' she said. "I began to look at why and see what has been done to our children to cause them to be so damaged and dangerous to others when they grow up.'' Mrs. Cooper found out the majority of inmates had been physically or sexually abused while growing up.

She said she formed the Coalition after noting few changes had been made to the 1943 Act and there was a lack of child advocacy groups in Bermuda.

The two-day symposium also uncovered: Local families are protecting child abusers and doctors are failing to cooperate by reporting suspected cases of child abuse.

Women's groups have come up against a brick wall in their efforts to obtain child abuse statistics from Police.

The Child Protection Act is ineffective as a deterrent, with child abusers subject to a maximum fine of $120 and a molester, $48 or three months.

It also featured a victim of sexual abuse who turned out to be a child molester. He called for intensive treatment programmes, saying child abusers are sick not criminal.

And rape victim Mrs. Patti Knap called for a boycott of stores selling skin magazines. "Invariably child sex offenders are found to have been introduced to pornography in some way,'' she said.