A week of activities geared at raising awareness and celebrating children will today kick-off with prayer services in churches across the country, followed by several other activities.
CC&PA Director, Ann Greene
Trailing the prayer services will be an open day expected to be held on Monday at the Child Care and Protection Agency’s (CC&PA) head office on Broad and Charles Streets, Charlestown, Georgetown.
This activity will begin from 10:00h and will facilitate questions from interested persons on various topics.
The Director of CC&PA, Ann Greene told Guyana Times that, “All the officers are going to talk and show things that they are doing so we are inviting the public to drop in and see a day in the life of a child protection officer, so they will see what we do, they can ask questions and we’ll tell you about our programmes and everything”.
One of the things the Agency is proud to be doing this year as part of Child Protection Week is to launch advertisements in two different Amerindian languages. This too will be done on Monday as she hinted at the National Communications Network on Homestretch Avenue, Georgetown.
Initially, plans were being made to launch the ads in four different languages during the week.
She explained, “We are launching for two now we still get two more to do but the two more can’t be done now until, the advice is that (we) get the radio stations to cover the areas so these are the two ads (that are most needed). We will be launching four ads in two languages now…we still will do the two (other languages) later on”.
On Wednesday, the feature activity which is a rally will be held at the Stabroek Square, commencing at 16:30h with the objective of ‘Breaking the Silence on Child Sexual Abuse’.
Greene noted that she anticipates the public will turn out in their numbers to support the initiative, while adding that several local artistes, including Michelle “Big Red” King and Jomo Primo are expected to perform.
A much anticipated activity will however be the launch of the Child Abuse Registry, which Greene said works are still being finalised on.
The Child Abuse Registry will be helpful in providing information in relation to a person’s biography. Greene pointed out that the perpetrators of sexual abuse will be publicised and exposed to the public, who will be able to access the requisite information on the Internet.
“People were clamouring for that, and so I gave a commitment to launch the Child Abuse Registry. It is really to put online the persons who would have committed offences against children. If anybody wants to employ anybody, you could run the Child Abuse Registry,” she had told Guyana Times during a recent interview.
Along with this, a few other events will be hosted before the week of activities wind down on Saturday, with a fun day and mini concert in the Botanical Gardens, where all are again invited to attend. That event is expected to commence at 14:00h.
Child Protection Week is being held from September 23 to 29, under the theme ‘Supporting families to prevent child abuse through education and community involvement’.
The event comes as at a time where Guyana has seen an increase in reported cases of abuse against children. As of June 2018, Guyana has recorded a total of 481 cases of sexual abuse against children.
The eye-opening figure was related by the Director of the Agency during a previous interview.
Numerous cases of child sexual abuse have managed to ache the heart of Guyanese in recent weeks. Several weeks after being found guilty of two counts of sexually penetrating a 10-year-old girl on May 30 and June 2, 2014, at a West Coast Demerara (WCD) village, Abdool Jamil, a 67-year-old pensioner, was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in jail.
On August 13, 2018, he was ordered to serve two life sentences by Sexual Offences Court Judge Priya Sewnarine-Beharry, who said the offender must serve at least 45 years before he was eligible for parole.
Back in July, in what she said was meant to send society a strong message, Justice Sewnarine-Beharry also sentenced 46-year-old Navindra Badal, called “Uncle Ravi,” to serve two consecutive life sentences for raping a nine-year-old girl on two separate occasions during 2016.
It was determined in the Sexual Offences Court that the acts were committed between July 1 and 31, 2016, and August 14 and 15, 2016, at an East Coast Demerara village.
Last week, another child rapist committed suicide before a life sentence could have been handed down on him.
