Almost every day citizens in this country, like everywhere in the world, are bombarded by reports of child abuse. The perpetrators are often those known to the child and even people who hold influential offices and every effort must be made to protect children.
So said Minister of State Ayanna Webster-Roy at the launch yesterday of UNICEF’s 2016 report, titled A Fair Chance For Every Child, at the Hilton Trinidad and Conference Centre, Port-of-Spain.
Describing children as society’s most vulnerable she said an emphasis must also be placed on equity. She drew the example of a child who had equal access to education but due to financial constraints within the home was unable to take full advantage of that access.
Webster-Roy said for a sustainable society to be properly built investment in children must take place especially as education went beyond a place of learning. Regarding foster care she said the Children’s Authority was expanding the number of foster care providers throughout the country.
UNICEF’s representative for the Eastern Caribbean area, Khin-Sandi Lwin, who also spoke, said the decision to launch the report in T&T was based on the fact that T&T had taken a leadership role in the Caribbean. She added the fact that children’s issues were elevated to the Office of the Prime Minister “really showed where the heart is in children.”
She said the promise of equity could be fulfilled if decision-makers chose to “walk the talk.” She added: “Millions of children’s lives around the world are blighted on no reason other than the place, gender or circumstances into which they are born.
“Failure to reach them now will keep fuelling into generational cycles of disadvantage that will imperial their future and the future of their societies and this increasingly interconnected world.”
Lwin said, however, there had been tremendous progress in T&T and in the Eastern Caribbean region as more children were living longer, healthier lives than ever before.
It was predicted that by 2030 167 million children would be living in extreme poverty, 69 million children under age five would die between now and 2030 with 3.6 million children predicted to die in one year alone from mostly preventable causes and there would be three-quarters of a billion child brides.
“But with the efforts being initiated by the ministry we are confident that none of that number would be from T&T,” Lwin added.