RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

Non-gov­ern­ment or­gan­i­sa­tions (NGOs) are be­ing asked to of­fer as­sis­tance to help re­move peo­ple beg­ging on the streets, es­pe­cial­ly chil­dren.

This call was made by the head of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence Unit Su­per­in­ten­dent Claire Guy-Al­leyne yes­ter­day af­ter con­cerns were raised by the au­thor­i­ties about the in­creas­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty of lo­cal and mi­grant chil­dren on the streets ei­ther beg­ging by them­selves or ac­com­pa­ny­ing adults to do the same.

Guy-Al­leyne said the is­sue was “wor­ry­ing” and added that she would like to see more NGOs step­ping up to help these peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly the chil­dren to get them off the streets be­cause they can be vic­tims of dif­fer­ent forms of abuse and as­sault. “These non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions should come for­ward and help get these chil­dren and adults off the streets. It would be great,” he said.

Asked if there are any cas­es of abuse against chil­dren beg­ging on the streets in dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try, Guy-Al­leyne said, “None be­fore the Unit but it is some­thing to be checked on with di­vi­sion­al heads.”

On Wednes­day the di­vi­sion met with key par­ties in the child pro­tec­tion sys­tem. This meet­ing was held at the di­vi­sion’s St Clair of­fice to fo­cus on the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of re­spond­ing state agen­cies to the is­sue of child en­dan­ger­ment.

Lead­ing the dis­cus­sion was Vi­jay Gan­gaper­sad, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary (Ag), Gen­der and Child Af­fairs. Al­so en­gaged in the dis­cus­sion were the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CATT) rep­re­sen­ta­tives Shel­don Cyrus, Di­rec­tor/Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer; Rhon­da Gre­goire-Roopchan, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er, Child Wel­fare Ser­vices; Van­dana Siew-Sankar-Ali, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er, Child and Fam­i­ly Rein­te­gra­tion Ser­vices; Su­per­in­ten­dent Guy-Al­leyne and Sergeant Nashia More­au of the Spe­cial Vic­tims De­part­ment; Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer (Ag) Ve­ra Per­sad; and Se­nior Le­gal Of­fi­cer Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion Lesel­li Si­mon-Dyette. Al­so, in at­ten­dance were San­jay Singh, Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary; Ir­ma Bai­ley-Reyes, Child Af­fairs Co­or­di­na­tor; and oth­er per­son­nel of the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (Gen­der and Child Af­fairs).

Amongst the is­sues raised were so­cial chal­lenges aris­ing from mem­bers of the pop­u­la­tion who re­sort to il­le­gal­ly en­gag­ing peo­ple on the street for cash or kind par­tic­u­lar­ly when chil­dren ei­ther ac­com­pa­ny such in­di­vid­u­als or are forced to en­gage in such ac­tiv­i­ties by them­selves.

A re­lease from the Min­istry of Gen­der and Child Af­fairs and the Na­tion­al AIDS Co­or­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee stat­ed that Wednes­day’s meet­ing sought to im­prove the col­lec­tive re­sponse of en­force­ment agen­cies through a greater un­der­stand­ing of the re­sponse process and to ex­plore op­por­tu­ni­ties for work­able so­lu­tions to en­sure that the rights of chil­dren are pro­tect­ed.

Gan­gaper­sad high­light­ed the need to en­sure that chil­dren are pro­tect­ed and cared for and not ex­posed to ac­tions that are like­ly to en­dan­ger them. He al­so em­pha­sised the pow­er of pub­lic en­gage­ment and at­tained con­sen­sus for fur­ther strength­en­ing the joint proac­tive re­sponse of state agen­cies.

Gan­gaper­sad called for con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion to en­gage in fur­ther dis­cus­sion for an im­proved in­te­grat­ed ap­proach to child care and pro­tec­tion in ear­ly 2024.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic are al­so strong­ly ad­vised to ex­er­cise re­straint and to de­sist from ex­pos­ing chil­dren to dan­ger and any forms of abuse.

The Gen­der and Child Di­vi­sion, key gov­ern­ment min­istries/agen­cies and oth­er stake­hold­ers re­spon­si­ble for child pro­tec­tion wel­come the pub­lic’s sup­port in this re­gard.

Re­ports of child abuse and en­dan­ger­ment can be re­port­ed to the TTPS (999), the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go Hot­line (996 or 800-2014) or the En­force­ment Unit–Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion at in­ves­ti­ga­tions.pos@gov.tt