Saskatoon police officer believes child abuse cases underreported during pandemic

When children don’t have normal or regular access to trusted adults like doctors, teachers or counsellors, they have fewer places to go to disclose they’re being abused or neglected.

Staff Sgt. James Repesse of the Saskatoon Police Service says cases of child abuse and neglect have been rising overall in Canada over the past five years. During the past year, though, many kids haven’t been in school or with significant adults in their lives outside their families.

Because of that, he believes fewer cases are being reported.

“There definitely is an effect. Do I think there’s more cases being reported during COVID? No. But I think there’s possibly an underreporting going on based on the fact that more people are confined to their homes,” he said.

Repesse says there are four full-time dedicated officers in the city’s Child Abuse Unit. They sometimes work with the RCMP’s Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) Unit on cases in the city as well.

There have been a couple of particularly troubling cases involving children in Saskatoon over the past couple of months.

On Dec. 7, Saskatoon police responded to a home on Lenore Drive after they got reports of a young boy on the roof of the house. There were also two other children — a four-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl — inside the house.

A 36-year-old woman was charged with several counts of assault with a weapon, and two counts of failing to provide the necessaries of life, forcible confinement and criminal negligence causing bodily harm in relation to the three children.

A 28-year-old man was also charged with assault and assault with a weapon.

On Tuesday, a 25-year-old Saskatoon woman was charged with a myriad of offences relating to a two-year-old girl and a four-year-old girl, including sexual assault, making and distributing child pornography, sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, and bestiality.

Repesse says he “absolutely” is concerned that some children who are spending more time indoors now — or who aren’t regularly seen by others who aren’t relatives — might be suffering.

“I think that when COVID is over, when kids are able to go back to an environment where they have access to adults that they trust or going to the doctor on a regular basis and those kinds of things, I do feel that we’re probably going to have a rise in the reports,” he said.

“I definitely think there’s some children out there that are not being assisted and not having help that they require because of the situation that we’re in.”

In a statement, the province’s Child and Family Program executive director, Isla Wilcox, said: “Over the past year, we have had to pivot how we provide child welfare services safely in the midst of a worldwide pandemic.”

Information provided by the Ministry of Social Services indicates that between April 1 and Dec. 31 of last year, the ministry received 13,145 reports of possible child abuse or neglect, a decrease of 890 (or 6.3 per cent) from 2019.

The reports were screened and resulted in the ministry conducting 4,888 child protection investigations, which is a decrease of 417 (7.9 per cent).

However, of the 3,692 children who were in care as of Dec. 31, Wilcox said: “The frequency of contact our workers have with children and youth in receipt of services, and across all out of home care options, has remained the same — this includes those residing at home with their families, or in placements with extended family, in group-home care and with approved foster families.”

Repesse urges anyone who may even suspect a child is being abused, in danger or neglected to call police, RCMP or the Ministry of Social Services.

“At least give us an opportunity to investigate them to see if there’s any merit behind them or whether or not there needs to be an action taken,” he said.

He says there’s nothing worse than a child being abused and not having someone help them.

“You’re never wrong to report,” he added. “I’d rather have more people report and have us find out that there’s nothing happening than to underreport and then to find out when these children are adults that this was going on as they were kids.”

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