The current Sexual Offences Act has strong legislative power but there is a gap in terms of its implementation.
It is in an effort to address this deficit that the focus this year is to be on training social and health workers as well as working with the government to set up clear protocols for reporting cases of sexual violence, Unicef’s Resident Representative Marianne Flach told Sunday Stabroek in a recent interview.
It is important for all involved to understand who has which responsibility, Flach said, emphasizing at the same time that the Sexual Offences Act was a big achievement for the country.
“The training of health workers is also very important; it is important to understand that those persons working in schools and in health care organisations… have a legal duty to report if they suspect any abuse of a child,” Flach said.
Unicef and the Guyana Government recently signed a US$1,645,956 contract for the annual work plan for the year 2014, which targets the development of children’s rights. The work plan came from the 2012-2016 country programme, which was developed by the government and Unicef in pursuit of children’s rights and gender equality. The plan outlines specific areas in need of urgent intervention to be executed by the Ministries of Human Services and Social Security, Education and Health.
According to Flach the aim of setting up the protocols for reporting is to ensure “that everybody understands” who has to do what. She said Unicef also gives support to the Child Protection Agency which since it has come into existence has seen an increase in the reporting of child abuse. However, she noted that the reports are still the tip of the iceberg and by working with the agency it is hoped that it could better respond to them.
“We need to work both on the reporting of cases but also on the prevention, and we want to focus more on prevention of abuse because we should not wait until a child is abused…” Flach said, indicating that apart from sensitization they have been concentrating on early reporting through the ‘Tell Scheme.’ This targets primary school children at the grade three and grade six levels – between the ages of 7 and 12 – encouraging them to tell somebody if they are being sexually abused or even inappropriately touched. The scheme also exists in other Caribbean countries.
“So there is a focus on the implementation of the laws and then the other focus on the capacity to respond, and that is at the level of judiciary, the level of schools and at the level of health institutions,” the local representative said.
She said that Unicef would like to do some more work at the level of the judiciary, noting that the organisation would like to see the Family Court – which has been on the agenda for a long time and which according to officials is now sourcing the right kind of furnishings – become a reality by the end of the year.
According to Flach Unicef also has worked with the government on juvenile justice and has worked with the New Opportunity Corps (NOC), collaboration which would continue.
Flach said Unicef supports the sentiments expressed by High Court Judge Roxanne George who during a recent forum to observe International Women’s Day stated that Guyana has a number of laws which provide a good basis for the advancement of women’s human rights. However, she noted that the legislative underpinnings and foundations are debased due to issues with the implementation of the laws.
Gender equality
On this issue Flach said while tremendous progress has been made in this area the big challenge in Guyana, as it is all over the world, is the changing social norms whereby if a woman has a better job than her partner it poses a problem. “It is difficult for the husband to accept and that is where many problems start, domestic violence etc, and so these are issues we need to work on, but it would take some generations; it is not an issue thing,” she said.
Meanwhile, Flach said Unicef’s focus on gender equality is accomplished through its programming which sees boys and girls as being equal. They have programmes such as the Health and Family Life Education (HFLE) which is done in schools targeting both boys and girls through which it is hoped there will be a reduction in teenage pregnancy.
While the attention has been on girls Flach said they have realized that more focus needs to be on boys, as whenever a girl is pregnant there is a father somewhere who had sex with a minor girl, and it is rape. “The big question is who are those fathers and how do we need to work with them. We shouldn’t work only with the girls but we should also work with the boys… and so this is integrated also in the HFLE approach,” Flach said.
Asked what would happen if the fathers are not boys but men, Flach responded that they have not started any specific work yet but they would be holding an evaluation of the HFLE programme which would see the input of many of the partners so they could decide on the way forward. Such questions, therefore, would be placed on the table.
And while at the global level Unicef places emphasis on improving girl’s education, in Guyana girls stay longer in schools than boys and do better than boys; as such the problem is more at the boys’ level. However, there would also be focus on keeping a girl in school after she had become pregnant. “No girl should be sent out of school because she is pregnant,” Flach said, adding that while the spotlight is still on girls the education of boys is an issue to be addressed.
According to Flach the number of teenage pregnancies in Guyana is high compared to other countries, and the discussions with other partners would focus on what further actions could be taken to address this issue.
She said that this year the plan is to do a mid-term review since they are in the third year of the five-year work plan with the government, and if necessary adjustments would be made and the issue of boys’ education would be put on the table.
She went on to say that Unicef’s action plan is mostly based on evidence derived from surveys they have conducted, and one of the most important ones – which is conducted in all countries and allows for comparisons to be made – is the MICS survey. The last MICS survey was done in 2006 and is normally undertaken every five years. It is now being done again in Guyana, and the training of workers has been completed and questionnaires have been developed. The survey will be carried out in all the regions and it is slated to commence on Wednesday. Fourteen teams of seven persons will be dispatched into the various areas to collect data with the focus being on health, education and the protection of children and mothers.
The survey will take two months and the report is scheduled to be completed by year end. In addition Unicef did an evaluation of the HFLE programme last year and a study on adolescents and HIV/AIDS which will be used for discussions and the planning of activities this year.
Flach said the MICS survey is the major evidenced-based reporting influencing Unicef’s programming and it would also be used for reporting on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Meantime, Flach said Unicef Guyana feels very strongly that everyone has a responsibility to prevent violence against children, not just the government and its international and local partners. Parents and other individuals in the home who are around children also have an obligation to them: “It is first of all the parents and the close environment, the community and then you need to look at the national level and then you look at the international level,” Flach said during the interview.
She said what it is important for Unicef in the context of the current work plan – a process that commenced last year – is the mapping of the whole child protection system “and who is doing what.”
“What is available already, what is in place in the country – that would help us then to discuss what are the gaps…” she said, stressing that mapping is an important part of the work plan.
She noted that Unicef at the global level has made it clear that children should be protected from all forms of violence, abuse and maltreatment and at present the attention is on corporal punishment, which is a violation of children’s rights. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has a very clear statement on corporal punishment in institutions such as schools, and that disciplinary action should be administered in a manner that respects a child’s dignity. It also supports parents giving their children guidance and direction instead of administering corporal punishment. The Unicef Guyana officer is involved in the national conversation on the issue, as globally the aim is to abolish this form of punishment.
