Ibthihaal

By Khadeeja Thasneem and Farhan Rasheed

Social media has been abuzz since Wednesday with public outrage over the death of three-year-old Mohamed Ibthihaal in the island of Rakeedhoo in Vaavu atoll following suspected abuse by his mother. Media coverage has been intense and in-depth as journalists hungry for facts amid broad speculation, driven by anger and sympathy, rushed to report the story from different angles.

After three days of swimming in this story, it is time to set aside the emotions and look at the situation from a more pragmatic point of view. What happened was tragic and unprecedented for our small country, but instead of delving deeper into the sensation it has created, let us look at two imperative and intertwined issues that greatly contributed to this incident.

One is the failure on the part of the authorities to redress a critical case of child abuse. The issue was reported, and officials of Ministry of Law and Gender as well as the police visited the island to investigate. If the ministry deserves any praise, it is for sending a team to the island populated by a measly 40 people. But the praise strictly ends there.

The ministry made two major mistakes. First, they failed to understand the severity of the abuse, and second, they failed to continue to monitor the situation. If the authorities had a procedure in place to measure risk for children in abusive environments, Ibthihaal’s condition would have raised a red flag. Despite the clear-cut signs, no alarm bells went off for the people who witnessed the situation first-hand. The officials ‘confirmed that the child was in a safe environment’, meaning he was not living with the mother at the time of the visit but with a relative of the mother, and left the island. There were no follow-up phone calls or visits, and no measures to prevent the child from returning to the abusive mother. The lapse in judgement has ultimately resulted in the loss of an innocent life, and this raises the question whether officials have the necessary training and skill to assess such cases.

In this single incident, we are dealing with two cases of child abuse – of Ibthihaal, the child, and of Afiya Mohamed, his mother. Any form of sympathy towards a woman whose actions have led to the death of her own child seems highly unpopular with the public. However, as the story deepened and details surfaced, we have learned from people who knew the family that Afiya endured sexual abuse from a young age. The roots of the abuse Ibthihaal suffered lie in Afiya’s childhood. Similar ordeals are too familiar to too many girls in our society, and not enough people talk about these issues. This also takes us back to the role of the authorities – Afiya should have been rescued from that situation, and perhaps there would have been no Ibthihaal to begin with.

The second issue is public apathy towards incidents of child abuse and domestic violence. Perhaps due to the prevalence of such cases, coupled with a lack of hope that authorities and courts can provide redress and justice to victims and perpetrators, there is a widespread sense of apathy in the local communities towards child and domestic abuse. Following this incident, people are talking about the issue of apathy towards child abuse in particular, saying that we have a tendency to post our concerns on Facebook and forget. Although the price to spark such a discussion has been the loss of an innocent life, we have renewed hope, however small, that a neighbour will not stand to hear the abuse of a child next door, and public pressure will subsequently push the authorities to prevent and deal with such cases efficiently.

The story of Ibthihaal has brought to light many issues our society needs to deal with. Let us now stop talking about the incident itself and move our focus to the bigger picture, and to addressing these problems. For once, parliamentarians can rightfully claim that the relevant legislation is in place. There are laws to protect children’s rights and prevent domestic violence, and this time, the negligence began with the executive body. It is not due to a lack of legal framework that this incident happened, but because of a lapse in implementation, and the general attitude of the authorities and locals towards these issues. The question remains whether we will see a fair judicial process to ensure justice for the victims, where those who are subjected to punishment are indeed those deserving punishment - and not double victims.