Trinidad and To­ba­go must ur­gent­ly con­front the dan­gers chil­dren face on­line, ex­perts said dur­ing a na­tion­al fo­rum on cy­ber-groom­ing host­ed by the Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Di­vi­sion.

The on­line event, held on Wednes­day 23 April as part of Child Abuse Pre­ven­tion Month, brought to­geth­er more than 300 par­tic­i­pants in­clud­ing par­ents, guardians, pro­fes­sion­als, and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers. It fo­cused on equip­ping the pub­lic with tools to pro­tect chil­dren from on­line preda­tors.

Renelle White, As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor of the Gen­der Af­fairs Di­vi­sion, opened with a ses­sion on “Un­der­stand­ing Cy­ber-Groom­ing”, of­fer­ing key in­sights in­to how on­line groom­ing oc­curs. She stressed the im­por­tance of dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly recog­nis­ing gen­der-based ma­nip­u­la­tion tac­tics, pri­va­cy con­trol, and set­ting clear bound­aries.

Psy­chol­o­gist Am­ri­ta So­hun of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty fol­lowed with a de­tailed break­down of groom­ing tac­tics, risk fac­tors, psy­cho­log­i­cal im­pacts, and strate­gies for in­ter­ven­tion. She urged vig­i­lance and ear­ly con­ver­sa­tions with chil­dren as part of pre­ven­ta­tive care.

Woman Po­lice Con­sta­ble Srad­dha Jef­fers-Har­ry, a Dig­i­tal In­tel­li­gence An­a­lyst with the TTPS, con­clud­ed with a stark pre­sen­ta­tion on on­line threats, child pornog­ra­phy laws, and the dan­gers em­bed­ded in dig­i­tal gam­ing spaces. She en­cour­aged proac­tive mon­i­tor­ing and re­port­ing of sus­pi­cious be­hav­iour.

The Di­vi­sion stressed that pub­lic aware­ness and open di­a­logue are vi­tal for com­bat­ing cy­ber-groom­ing and reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to child pro­tec­tion across Trinidad and To­ba­go.