The Ministry of Human Services and Social Security (MHSSS) in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Guyana yesterday launched its toll-free 914 emergency hotline number which persons can call to report domestic and sexual violence and also ask for assistance.
Other partners include Digicel-Guyana, the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GTT) Company and the Telecommunications Agency.
Present at the launch of the number, which was held at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre at Liliendaal, were Human Services Minister Vindhya Persaud, UNICEF Representative (acting) Irfan Akhtar and Nalini Vieira and Hilton Wong, representatives of Digicel and GTT, respectively.
The hotline will be in operation 24/7 and persons, including victims of domestic and sexual violence, can call for assistance or report instances of domestic and sexual violence. It was announced that when a call is placed between 8 am and 4.30 pm, it is routed to a trained customer service operator, who, in turn, will connect the caller to a social worker. Calls made after working hours and during weekends will be routed to the mobile handset of social workers where all calls will be addressed with confidentiality. The social workers are expected to provide necessary consultations and refer children and parents to local service providers and other relevant agencies.
Patricia Smithet, a domestic violence survivor, applauded the initiative, while saying that she wished that this type of service was available 15 years ago. She revealed that she was abused for 12 years by her husband, who started to hit her two years into their marriage. “He hit me places where nobody could see… My life was hell… Moving on is not promised and I tried moving on many times but he [was] always there… I was never independent, I was controlled,” she emotionally recalled.
Smithet went on to add that she is happy that such an initiative has been brought to life because she knows that a lot of women will be saved because if something goes wrong they can pick up a phone and call the hotline and have a place to go. “I wish that this could’ve happened 15 years ago then maybe, I wouldn’t be living with these scars,” she said.
In addition, she stated that someone can’t be saved unless they want to be and advised that victims should make up their minds and learn to fight for and love themselves. “I had to learn to love me and choose what’s best for me,” she noted.
Meanwhile, Persaud, in her remarks, stated that like Smithet, she wished that such a service was available earlier. “I wished it too because every woman that loses her life is one too much. Every person, male or female, every child that faces abuse is one too much,” she added.
She reported that last year, the Ministry received 1,009 reports of violence from January to July and this year only 568 cases. She stated that they realized that the COVID-19 pandemic is having an impact on the reporting of abuse as now more people are at home and most of the perpetrators are persons in the home. She stated that this is why it is imperative for the 914 hotline to work.
In addition, she stated that police figures show that nine out of ten perpetrators are men and nine out of ten victims are women and the most common type of violence is assault. She added that 60 percent of abusers that were arrested have been charged but it is her hope that this percentage will soon increase to 100. She also revealed that 80 percent of all reported cases involve persons in an intimate relationship.
“Excuses are made by many women not because they don’t want you to know but because they live in fear of more violence. I want to appeal to anyone who is experiencing violence, 914 is a 24-hour service that is toll free for you. I know that nothing is perfect, sometimes there will be glitches but this is a step in the right direction and every time there is a glitch, we will work on improving it and that is our commitment to the people of Guyana,” Persaud stated before taking UNICEF for the partnership.
She revealed that the Ministry will take this initiative a step further as they will be providing training programmes to persons experiencing domestic violence.
In his remarks, Akhtar noted that the launch of the hotline is an important milestone and one of the best example of public-private and UNICEF partnership for empowering women and children in Guyana.
A joint statement prepared by the MHSSS and UNICEF stated that they have recognised the need for the creation of an efficient, effective and holistic hotline service to meet the needs of the population, particularly on issues of child protection and domestic violence in Guyana.
According to the statement, the ministry responds to over 3,000 cases of abuse and it is expected that access to a toll-free hotline will be an instrumental solution towards ensuring availability of key and essential services, especially for children and adolescents. “It is against this context that the Ministry, initially with UNICEF, first approached both services providers (Digicel and GG) and the Telecoms Agency to seek their partnership and advice for securing a 3-dgit toll free number,” the statement noted.
In addition, the statement added that it is the hope of all collaborating partners that the hotline number will be easy to recall by children, who will be encouraged to tell their stories. It is also expected that the service will attract an increased number of reports and, to that end, the Ministry and UNICEF have agreed to continue to expand services for reporting and response, given the need to also reach interior locations.
The statement added that the hotline currently offers information to users on existing services, documentation of cases and referral to other service providers. It was revealed that no tracing of numbers is provided but this can be done on a case by case basis with the approval of the Guyana Police Force. The calls can be distributed to at least 10 social workers and 10 child Protection Officers, all of whom will have access to mobile phones.
Although multi-lingual services are not yet being available, the ministry is currently lobbying for support, including for indigenous languages.
