The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

November 5, 2023, marks the second anniversary of the murder of “Baby Bella” Burrows for a Better Bahamas remembers Grand Bahama children that we lost to murder. The state of child protection in The Bahamas is tragic, and we have not seen the political will needed to make the protection of our most vulnerable a national priority. How many more children will we allow to fall prey to incest, physical violence, emotional abuse and neglect?

I implore West End and Bimini to elect me to propose an overhaul of the Child Protection Act and mandate child sexual abuse prevention training for people that work with minors. It took successive governments almost a decade to enact Marco’s Missing Child Alert system and Sex Offender Registry. I will no longer stand for such blatant ineptitude as it relates to these serious matters. The great people of West End have an opportunity to send me into the House of Assembly to represent their needs and those of the Children of The Bahamas.

A number of Bahamian children have since become victims of homicide, including:

• Parents of two-year-old boy charged with manslaughter in 2023

• A man and a child in his care died after a disturbance at their home in 2023.

• Four-year-old Kenton Seymour, Jr, killed during a shooting in 2022.

• 13-year-old boy murdered in 2022.

The media reported an almost 50 percent increase in reported cases of child abuse in April of this year.

What’s the status of former senator Trevor Whylly’s court case for him accused of allegedly sexually assaulting a boy?

TERNEILLE BURROWS

Candidate for West Grand Bahama and Bimini

November 5, 2023

• EDITOR’S NOTE: The trial of former senator Trevor Whylly, who is accused of indecently assaulting a 12-year-old boy, is set for December 16.