MUSCAT, April 16 - A total of 646 cases of violence against children were reported in the Sultanate in 2018, against which effective measures were taken, according to sources from the Ministry of Social Development. These cases included violence against 387 male children and 259 female children, which were handled by the child protection committees across the Sultanate in the first half of last year. This is revealed as the Unicef, in association with the ministries in Oman, has embarked on a week-long refresher training course for child protection officers and other officials concerned with a view to identify children who are at the risk of violence, and to check child abuse cases in the country.
“This training course, which is the second in the series, envisages the officials to pilot the cross-sectoral case management platform, and to ensure that violence against children is totally eliminated from the society,” a representative of the Unicef told the Observer. The nearly 31 participants included members of the Child Protection Committee from Muscat and Nizwa, social workers from the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, and Ministry of Social Development, members of the Pilot Monitoring Team, and Unicef officials.
The participants, during the five-day workshop, analysed the definition of integrated case management, key principles underpinning case management, and expected outcomes of case management, besides suggesting measures to tackle such situations where a child is vulnerable to suffer. “In terms of format, we envision small groups going through each step (SOPs and tools) with a real case that has been developed by participants on Day 1 and assigned to them. Each case should be different,” the Unicef official said. Each group will practice using all of the tools in their case for each step followed by an open discussion in the beginning so that all groups will get a sense of the issues addressed when dealing with different case scenarios.
The number of child abuse cases in Muscat rose to 250 (161 male, 89 females), followed by North Al Batinah 125 cases (72 male, 53 female), South Batinah 53 (34 male, 19 female) and Al Dakhiliyah 46 cases. Forty-five cases were reported in Al Dhahirah Governorate, followed by North Al Sharqiyah (41), Al Buraimi (35) and 22, South Al Sharqiyah and Musandam, and five cases in Dhofar. Cases of child abuse in Oman vary from parental negligence to physical abuse, verbal or emotional abuse and physical neglect. “Children are at numerous risks such as emotional, physical and mental violence at various places like homes, schools, communities and school buses, and only through effective training and implementation procedures we can tackle the issue”, she added.
“Parents play a bigger role in reducing the number of cases and in encouraging their children to inform them about any abuse. They should develop a friendly relation with their children based on which they will be confident enough to disclose their maltreatment at any place and at any point of time,” one of the participants said. Towards the end of the programme, there will be a discussion on the process ‘What worked well? What challenges did you encounter? How is it different than what you currently do?’ leading to presentation of action plan to large group and final evaluation on the final day (April 18).
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