RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

Mem­bers of the pub­lic are be­ing urged to con­tact the po­lice or the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty when­ev­er they see a child, lo­cal or mi­grant, beg­ging or ac­com­pa­ny­ing an adult do­ing so, since it a clear case of child en­dan­ger­ment. And it could lead to of­fend­ers be­ing fined or im­pris­oned.

Yes­ter­day, a state­ment from the of­fice of Min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, Min­is­ter with Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Gen­der and Child Af­fairs, said con­cerns have been raised by the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties on the in­creas­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty of chil­dren on the streets - in­clud­ing chil­dren of mi­grant groups - ei­ther beg­ging or ac­com­pa­ny­ing adults who are beg­ging for as­sis­tance.

The state­ment said a meet­ing was re­cent­ly held with sev­er­al min­istry of­fi­cials and oth­er stake­hold­ers who not­ed the preva­lence of peo­ple “il­le­gal­ly en­gag­ing per­sons on the street for cash or kind and par­tic­u­lar­ly when chil­dren ei­ther ac­com­pa­ny such in­di­vid­u­als or made to al­so en­gage in such ac­tiv­i­ties.”

It said on Wednes­day, the Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Di­vi­sion met with key stake­hold­ers in the child pro­tec­tion ecosys­tem. The 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.

The 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.

Stake­hold­ers high­light­ed the need to en­sure that chil­dren are pro­tect­ed and cared for and not ex­posed to ac­tions that are like­ly to en­dan­ger them.

The state­ment added, “As the Christ­mas sea­son con­tin­ues and the up­com­ing Car­ni­val sea­son not far ahead, par­ents, guardians and the gen­er­al pub­lic are re­mind­ed that child pro­tec­tion is every­body’s busi­ness and are en­cour­aged to re­port mat­ters where chil­dren are like­ly to be in im­mi­nent dan­ger.

“The pub­lic is strong­ly ad­vised that it is an of­fence for any per­son plac­ing him­self in any street to beg or to cause, pro­cure or en­cour­age a child to do so. Such ac­tions can lead to of­fend­ers be­ing fined or im­pris­oned.”

The state­ment said act­ing per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the min­istry, Vi­jay Gan­gaper­sad, called for the com­mit­ment of con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion to en­gage in fur­ther dis­cus­sion for an im­proved in­te­grat­ed ap­proach to child care and pro­tec­tion in ear­ly 2024.

As such, the re­lease said it was de­cid­ed, that, “A child found to be beg­ging, re­ceiv­ing alms or loi­ter­ing for the pur­pose of beg­ging or re­ceiv­ing alms is a ma­jor con­cern to the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice. In such in­stances, any mem­ber of the pub­lic be­liev­ing that a child is at risk and en­dan­gered in this way are strong­ly ad­vised to bring this mat­ter to the at­ten­tion of the Au­thor­i­ty or the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.”

It al­so strong­ly ad­vised cit­i­zens to ex­er­cise re­straint and de­sist from ex­pos­ing chil­dren to dan­ger and any forms of abuse.

The state­ment said 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 in­ves­ti­ga­tions.pos@gov.tt).

Ac­tivist tells Govt to stop tak­ing fund­ing

Mean­while, with mi­grant chil­dren be­ing de­port­ed to Venezuela along with their par­ents an ac­tivist has called on T&T to stop ac­cept­ing fund­ing to help them.

This week an­oth­er repa­tri­a­tion ex­er­cise took place where 161 Venezue­lans who were de­tained at the He­li­port in Ch­aguara­mas were sent to Venezuela.

Venezue­lan ac­tivist Sofia Figueroa-Leon said she has no prob­lem with Venezue­lans be­ing de­port­ed if they have crim­i­nal records. How­ev­er, she said that the au­thor­i­ties need to de­cide whether or not to stop ac­cept­ing fund­ing from for­eign bod­ies to as­sist the mi­grant pop­u­la­tion.

“These for­eign bod­ies send mon­ey to the gov­ern­ment for the mi­grant pop­u­la­tion but they are in­stead de­port­ing them. So they need to de­cide on whether to con­tin­ue re­ceiv­ing the funds or stop,” she claimed.