Doctors should be made responsible for reporting child abuse cases and given powers to file lawsuits against perpetrators, experts say. Many child abuse cases in Qatar are not brought before the law because parents shy away from moving the court while doctors treating the victims are not authorised to do that.

To address this issue, experts have called on the Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) to review its internal policies to give doctors more powers in dealing with child abuse cases.

This was the major recommendation of a two-day workshop on child abuse. The workshop was organised by the Shafallah Center for children with special needs to develop a unified policy in dealing with cases of abuse and violence against children.

The law stipulates that the child abuse cases should be reported and the complaint should be filed by the parents or the guardians, said Dr Mohammed Al Amiri, child consultant and deputy director of Al Sadd Paediatric Emergency, while addressing the workshop.

In most cases, the parents are willing to report the cases or move the court for the fear that it will affect their reputation in the society. And if at all they want to file a complaint, most parents are ignorant of the procedures, he noted.

If a child is admitted to the hospital following an incident of abuse, the parents would insist to get them discharged as early as possible and refuse to file a suit against the perpetrators. And doctors don’t have any legal right to file a case, because it has to be done through the Public Prosecution, said Al Amiri.

Currently all the doctors can do is inform the social workers so that some action could be taken through their involvement.

With this in view, the Al Sadd Emergency has formed a team to follow up on child abuse cases, he added. The cases will mostly come to the doctors and they are the ones who can produce authentic reports about such incidents.

Even the Public Prosecution needs to refer to the medical reports issued by the doctors. If the doctors are given powers to file cases, it will speed up the legal procedures, the participants noted.

The Public Prosecution can not file a case without taking an official permission from HMC. This is also causing delays.

The physical impact and marks of abuse and violence are important evidence in child abuse cases and any delay in the legal procedures can lead to loss of evidence.

The workshop also demanded protection for informers through a special law to encourage the parents to report abuse cases.

The participants also underlined the importance of follow-up by the parents and family members even after the investigations are completed to ensure that such children are not abused again.