Government is being asked to subsidise the cost of day care for parents struggling to pay for quality care for their children.

The Coalition for the Protection of Children head Sheelagh Cooper has also suggested that Government set up a website dedicated to home and nursery care, with every care provider required to fill out the basic information on their policies ? and their disciplinary policies in particular.

The call came after it was reported that there were 443 cases of child abuse and neglect in the last year.

However, now understands that number represented only the suspected cases reported to Child and Family Services ? and, after investigation into each one, it was determined that 268 were actual cases of abuse and neglect, while the other 175 were not.

Applauding Health and Family Services Minister Patrice Minors for planning to review day care regulations, Ms Cooper said a task force set up by the Coalition ten years ago found varied approaches to discipline in day care. Many favoured corporal punishment, and Ms Cooper said she believed the same would be true today.

?The severity, one hopes, doesn?t approach abuse,? she said. ?But parents need to know the policy, and what it looks like, in order to make informed decisions.?

In Bermuda, 85 percent of children are cared for outside of the home, she said ? a high percentage in comparison with other countries. ?We have very few stay at home parents.?

However, day care is expensive. ?Women on marginal incomes can?t afford adequate day care,? she said. ?In a community with people with marginal incomes needing day care, you are going to find inadequate and uninformed people offering their services for less money.

?Government should look at the cold question of subsidising adequate child care. It?s a very important part of a child?s life....

?They need good, trained people with good facilities and adequate play areas with lots of stimulation.?

The Coalition has not seen an increase in actual incidents of child abuse on the Island, she said.

?But we are seeing an increase in the severity. The level of violence has increased compared to what we have seen in the past. That?s very unsettling, to say the least.?

Ms Cooper also called for cases involving serious child abuse to be heard in Supreme Court, not Magistrates? Court.

Magistrates? Court has only narrow options for sentencing, she said.

It is expected that the recent case involving former day care operator Jacquelyn Fubler, who admitted to child abuse, will go to Supreme Court for sentencing but Ms Cooper said such cases should be in Supreme Court as a matter of routine.

The Children?s Act was passed in 1998 making the reporting of child abuse mandatory. However, more reports have not followed, Ms Cooper said.

?We aren?t getting the kind of reports we would have expected from neighbours given the new legislation, or, from doctors either. It makes one wonder whether doctors are seeing the children.

?The reports are noticeable by their absence.?

When asked if it was possible reports were coming into the Coalition because such cases were not occurring in Bermuda, Ms Cooper said the actual rate of child abuse in countries is usually about ten percent higher than what is reported.

?The question is, where are the others??

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