A national protocol for Child Advocacy Centres (CACs), which was signed in December, will see ensure uniformity in their operations and procedures, a press release from the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) said.
The release said that according to the protocol, the objective of the CACs is to provide services for sexually abused children and their families. It explained that the CAC is a child-focused, facility-based programme in which representatives from various disciplines will collaborate to conduct interviews with children who have been sexually abused and for them to make team decisions about the investigation including forensic interviews, treatment, management and prosecution of child sexual abuse cases.
It was noted that DPP Shalimar Ali-Hack signed on to the protocol, which was issued by Ministry of Social Protection, along with representatives of Guyana Police Force, the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Public Health, and two non-governmental organisations: Blossom Inc and Childlink Inc.
Guyana’s first CAC was launched in 2013 by the NGO Forward Guyana in collaboration with ChildLink Inc. Subsequently, on September 23, 2015, a European Union-funded CAC was opened at Fort Wellington, Berbice. Two days later, a third CAC was commissioned at Land of Plenty on the Essequibo Coast.
Meanwhile, the release noted that the Childcare and Protection Agency will be the oversight body for the operations of the CACs, which will provide a safe, child-friendly location where children are interviewed by a trained forensic interviewer about sexual abuse that they experienced. The interview will be recorded and will serve as a visual record of the child’s statement. While the interview is in progress, the release noted, it will be observed on a screen in an adjoining room by a forensic interview team.
It said the local CAC model has been adopted from a USA model and aims to increase the successful prosecution of perpetrators and to offer therapeutic services to victims and their families and to reduce the chances of the victim suffering any repeated occurrences. The CAC Protocol will serve as guiding principles for all CACs in Guyana and is mandatory when developing and building CACs and multi-disciplinary teams in various communities.
