KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Child­hood Jus­tice Col­lec­tive (CJC) con­venor Mar­cus Kissoon is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to recom­mit to a child-cen­tred ap­proach to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, amid grow­ing con­cerns over the num­ber of chil­dren be­ing af­fect­ed by vi­o­lence and abuse.

Speak­ing against the back­drop of sev­er­al re­cent child deaths that have sparked na­tion­al con­cern, the child rights ad­vo­cate urged the Prime Min­is­ter to draw on her long­stand­ing his­to­ry of en­gage­ment with civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions and ad­vo­cates for women and chil­dren.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Kissoon said, “I’m ac­tu­al­ly call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­mem­ber her ear­li­er work with peo­ple like Hazel brown and Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att, and when she worked with the Hin­du Women’s Or­gan­i­sa­tion, and when she re­al­ly in­vest­ed in the school child, to think about where her mind, her analy­sis was and where her heart was when she cen­tred the na­tion’s chil­dren in na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment strate­gic plan­ning… I am call­ing on her to bring back that kind of hu­man-cen­tred de­vel­op­ment frame­work for the na­tion.”

He al­so called for a ded­i­cat­ed Min­istry of Child and Gen­der Af­fairs.

At present, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for child af­fairs falls un­der the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices led by Min­is­ter Van­dana Mo­hit.

Un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, a Gen­der and Child Af­fairs di­vi­sion op­er­at­ed un­der the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

He said, “What we are see­ing is that chil­dren are be­com­ing di­rect­ly af­fect­ed by adult vi­o­lence, whether it be gangs, whether it be un­healthy in­ti­mate part­ner re­la­tion­ships, chil­dren are con­tin­u­ous­ly be­com­ing the byprod­uct of it, whether it be un­em­ploy­ment, with the dis­solv­ing of par­tic­u­lar jobs, chil­dren be­come the one to be af­fect­ed by all of these… We need to shift that cul­ture. And this is why not on­ly do we need a spe­cif­ic min­istry, we need that min­istry to hold all oth­er min­istries ac­count­able for when they’re do­ing their na­tion­al plan­ning and de­vel­op­ment to think about a child.”

Kissoon said he be­lieves this min­is­te­r­i­al change is tak­ing a step back­wards and rep­re­sents a dis­re­gard for the work and ad­vance­ments of ac­tivists and child rights ad­vo­cates.

He said, “If we take chil­dren’s af­fairs and place it in so­cial de­vel­op­ment (Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices), chil­dren’s is­sues, as the CJC has high­light­ed many times, will on­ly be a wel­fare is­sue. Chil­dren are not on­ly wel­fare is­sues… So, to place it there is to tell the pub­lic that we will be us­ing a sort of wel­fare men­tal­i­ty, wel­fare frame­work to deal with chil­dren,” he said.

“When it was in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, what it did is that it spoke to the na­tion, say­ing that one of the high­est of­fices in this coun­try will make room for chil­dren. It gave a ded­i­cat­ed min­is­ter, it gave re­sources and it start­ed to fo­cus on poli­cies and struc­tures and sys­tems that would think about the child, the Trinidad and To­ba­go child, and what those spe­cif­ic needs are at the same time, in­vest­ing in things like re­search.

Ac­cord­ing to Kissoon, the re­sponse to these in­ci­dents should not be lim­it­ed to crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions af­ter the fact, but the Gov­ern­ment should al­so hold in­sti­tu­tions ac­count­able for not pro­tect­ing or sup­port­ing the well-be­ing of chil­dren.

He al­so called for greater con­sul­ta­tion with civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions and re­newed calls for the es­tab­lish­ment of an in­de­pen­dent Na­tion­al Chil­dren’s Com­mis­sion­er, as rec­om­mend­ed in the 2021 Ju­dith Jones Re­port. He said this of­fice hold­er would re­port di­rect­ly to Par­lia­ment and over­see how gov­ern­ment agen­cies, schools and oth­er in­sti­tu­tions ad­dress is­sues af­fect­ing chil­dren.

At­tempts to con­tact Mo­hit were un­suc­cess­ful up to press time. How­ev­er, in a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the min­istry said it was ready to sup­port on­go­ing ef­forts be­ing con­sid­ered by the TTPS Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit to help those af­fect­ed by the death of 12-year-old Mer­cedes Cabr­era-Layne.