25 Apr 2005

American Samoan conference to fight child abuse

3:59 pm on 25 April 2005

A conference on the Prevention of Child Abuse in American Samoa aims to force public discussion on social problems that are often swept under the mat.

The conference brought together local agencies and organisations from Samoa and American Samoa and experts from the National Child Protection Training Centre.

Fa'aalu Iuli, a member of the American Samoa Interagency Child Abuse Task Force which organized the conference, says the main goal is to bring the subject into the open by establishing a dialogue.....

"I guess what I mean by that is that it becomes more of a comfort thing - that we are able to talk about it a little bit more rather than push it to the side because, one: we don't have the language to talk about it, and two: it has never been very prominent."

Fa'aalu Iuli