Dame Lois Browne Evans recently raised the subject in the House of Assembly.

The Attorney General, in a wide-ranging speech two weeks ago, said: "Pretty soon this country will be a study for the UN on incest.'' She went on to refer to the "in-breeding going on'' before tackling the issue of rising divorce rates and the breakdown of the family.

The outburst drew a startled response from MPs.

Her opposite number John Barritt told The Royal Gazette that he was baffled about what point Dame Lois was trying to make.

He said: "I was as stunned as anybody else was when this was said at that hour of the early morning.

"I don't know where she's coming from or the point she was trying to make.

The Attorney General can explain herself better than I can.'' However Mrs. Young said the issue of incest needed to be taken seriously.

She said: "I think we have quite a bit of incest in Bermuda. You can see this in some of the cases coming up in the newspapers.

"It's something we are not dealing with well at all. It seems to be a taboo subject. People don't want to talk about it.

"It's something people want to think doesn't actually happen.

"Women are now confident about coming out and talking about rape and sex assaults but young men are not confident about talking about sex assaults and incest goes along the same lines.

"We don't have an environment where people are ready to deal with that problem.

"You would think the non-abusing parent would want to do something about it.'' She said social workers should ask psychiatric patients if they had suffered from incest and an explicit anti-incest message should be put out to schools.

Lois Brown Evans Campaign: Kim Young HEALTH HTH