Jan­nelle Bernard

Se­nior Re­porter

jan­nelle.bernard@cnc3.co.tt

The Min­istry of Gen­der and Child Af­fairs is hop­ing that there will be a clos­er col­lab­o­ra­tion with the po­lice and civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions when it comes to treat­ing with vic­tims of do­mes­tic and gen­der-based vi­o­lence.

This, as Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, yes­ter­day launched a new dig­i­tal sys­tem called Um­bona, which she said is meant to bol­ster ser­vice de­liv­ery to vic­tims.

Web­ster-Roy said all ef­forts would be made to min­imise the trau­ma ex­pe­ri­enced by vic­tims seek­ing as­sis­tance.

She said, “The Um­bona sys­tem is a sig­nif­i­cant step in our ef­forts to com­bat gen­der-based vi­o­lence, and specif­i­cal­ly do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

“As Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to im­ple­ment the Na­tion­al Strate­gic Ac­tion Plan on gen­der-based vi­o­lence and sex­u­al vi­o­lence, the Um­bona sys­tem emerges as a key in­no­va­tion bol­ster­ing pol­i­cy de­vel­op­ment and ser­vice de­liv­ery in line with our na­tion­al goals. The Um­bona sys­tem marks a sig­nif­i­cant tran­si­tion from a ba­sic reg­istry to a com­pre­hen­sive sys­tem with ad­vanced client man­age­ment ca­pa­bil­i­ties.”

Web­ster-Roy said the new sys­tem would as­sist in keep­ing fam­i­lies to­geth­er, as in the past vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence seek­ing shel­ter were forced to be sep­a­rat­ed from their male chil­dren.

“No vic­tim, ei­ther as an adult or as a child, or sur­vivor, ei­ther as a man or a woman, or even the per­pe­tra­tors, will be left be­hind in get­ting these ser­vices that will en­sure their full rein­te­gra­tion in­to so­ci­ety. The Um­bona sys­tem is a holis­tic sys­tem be­cause the chil­dren’s reg­istry will al­so be in­te­grat­ed in­to the sys­tem. In this way, par­ents and chil­dren will re­ceive care si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly.”

She added that the sys­tem will see all agen­cies shar­ing in­for­ma­tion to en­sure vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens re­ceived the com­pre­hen­sive care and sup­port they need to heal and re­cov­er in a time­ly man­ner, as­sur­ing con­fi­den­tial­i­ty.