An­na-Lisa Paul

Par­ents and guardians of chil­dren, who will be out at var­i­ous lo­ca­tions dur­ing the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od, are be­ing urged to tag their off-spring in the event they are lost or wan­der off.

Is­su­ing the ad­vice as he spoke dur­ing the week­ly TTPS me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain – Car­ni­val Gold Com­man­der, ACP Col­lis Hazel said, “Noth­ing is wrong with you plac­ing a name-tag or a num­ber, af­fixed on your child, whether play­ing mas or out of mas cos­tume, so that they can be eas­i­ly iden­ti­fied and there can be some com­mu­ni­ca­tion should some­thing go wrong with these chil­dren.”

Al­so in a re­lease, the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CATT) urged the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to make child pro­tec­tion a pri­or­i­ty dur­ing the Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties.

The au­thor­i­ty said while Car­ni­val pro­vid­ed chil­dren with an op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties, en­joy a break from their nor­mal rou­tines, as well as play and rest, “it is al­so a time of height­ened dan­ger for chil­dren as they are more vul­ner­a­ble to ne­glect, ac­ci­dents, harm and abuse if there is a lack of prop­er su­per­vi­sion.”

The CATT ad­vised par­ents and care­givers, “Be­fore You Ra­ma­jay, Make Sure The Chil­dren are Ok”.

The au­thor­i­ty said: “Chil­dren should not be left at home alone but un­der the su­per­vi­sion of a trust­ed and re­spon­si­ble adult.”

They re­it­er­at­ed that it was an of­fence to ex­ploit chil­dren for free labour, and to force them to work to pro­vide for them­selves or to help their fam­i­lies meet every day needs.

The CATT’s act­ing di­rec­tor, Sharon Mor­ris-Cum­mings, said there need­ed to be a col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach to re­duce in­ci­dents of child labour and child abuse.

Among the safe­ty tips for adults were to ver­i­fy the safe­ty and trust-wor­thi­ness of any club or group fa­cil­i­tat­ing car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties or camps; teach and re­mind chil­dren about recog­nis­ing abuse and how to pro­tect them­selves; cre­at­ing and main­tain­ing free-flow­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion with chil­dren; and set­ting bound­aries about places chil­dren may go and en­forc­ing them.

For any­one aware of in­ci­dents of child abuse, mal­treat­ment or ne­glect, they are ad­vised to call the Au­thor­i­ty’s Hot­line at 996 or the Po­lice at 999 to make a re­port.