The Children’s Authority says boys three years and younger are being sexual abused in this country while in Tobago children between one and three are being sexually abused by other children. The authority says the highest reported types of child sexual abuse offenses are sexual penetration and sexual touching.

The information is contained in a report on child sexual abuse complied by the Children’s Authority over a nine-month period. The report also notes that close to 1,000 cases of child sexual abuse were brought to the attention of the authority during the period, representing one in five enduring such trauma.

The authority says it was notified that 4,158 children were in need of care, protection and rehabilitation. It says of this, approximately 915 cases or one in five reports were categorized as sexual abuse, which highlighted statistical information compiled during the period May 18th, 2015 to February 17th, 2016

The authority says of the cases 86.8 per cent comprised girls while 13.2 per cent of sexual abuse cases involved boys. While reports of sexual abuse against children were received from all districts in Trinidad and Tobago, the districts of San Juan/Laventille, Tunapuna/Piarco and Couva/Tabaquite/Talparo recorded the most number of reports of sexual abuse against children than any other district in the country.