Director of the Childcare and Protection Agency (CC&PA), Ann Greene, has revealed that the long awaited and much needed Child Abuse Registry will be launched in September.
This was recently related to this newspaper by the director, who reminded that this year’s Child Protection Week will commence on September 23 under the theme ‘Supporting families to prevent child abuse through education and community involvement.’
The Child Abuse Registry will be helpful in providing information in relation to a person’s biography. Greene pointed out that the perpetrators of sexual abuse will be publicised and exposed to the public, who will be able to access the requisite information on the internet.
“People were clamouring for that, and so I gave a commitment to launch the Child Abuse Registry. It is really to put online the persons who would have committed offences against children. If anybody wants to employ anybody, you could run the Child Abuse Registry,” she explained.
According to her, a few “final touches” are being added to the Registry to ensure it meets the mandatory requirements. “We got some equipment to set up, and that is being done right now,” she asserted.
Greene did not reveal the cost of the programme, but only said it was budgeted for and it is a rather technical database.
“A lot of information will be made available through the Registry; (like) the type of abuse, the person’s age, their name, where they’re from, and so on. Because when we set up this database, we can do drafts and look and see where the abusers are. We can pull up the map and see where they are,” she revealed.
The perpetrators’ pictures, she said, will also likely be available through the Registry, since the department is cognisant of the fact that people have the same names.
It was on this note that the Director reiterated the importance of such a database in combating child abuse nationally.
The Social Protection Ministry first announced plans to establish this type of registry back in 2016. The then Guyana Information Agency (GINA) had reported that the Ministry would be embarking on a series of community outreaches countrywide to develop a registry to ensure that all vulnerable individuals and families are accounted for.
Minister Volda Lawrence, who then was in charge of the Ministry, said, “For instance, if someone goes to the Central Recruitment and Manpower Agency (CRMA) for a job, that agency will be able to see that person’s information…”
