Childcare and protection
Protecting children from abuse, neglect, outright violence, and exploitation is a responsibility that first and foremost lies with the parents or legal guardians of the children, and it is normal to expect that those parents and guardians will go out of their way to ensure the safety of their offspring or wards.
When such protection is lacking, the potential for sometimes serious physical and psychological damage, economic deprivation, molestation, and exploitation of a child becomes a frightening reality. To combat this, most countries of the world have set up within their governments an agency tasked with monitoring the welfare of children, and empowered to take drastic action to secure the safety of those determined to be at risk.
In Guyana, the agency tasked with this responsibility is the Child Protection Agency which, over the years, has aggressively sought to educate the public on child protection issues while executing its mandate with respect to protecting our nation’s vulnerable and at-risk children.
Not that this is an easy task. Despite being empowered under the Childcare and Protection Agency Act 2009 “to provide and maintain childcare shelters and facilities for children in need of care and protection…” and “to take any necessary action against any private person or organisation to ensure that safety and wellbeing of children under the care of that person or organisation are promoted and protected” and also “to place children in foster homes or orphanages or other places of care where protection of the children can be obtained,” the agency sometimes has to grapple with a public outcry and uncooperative family members whenever it seeks to carry out its mandate. Many times the Agency will, of necessity, have to work in collaboration with law enforcement to ensure the safety of all parties as they carry out their investigations including, from time to time, taking a child out of the custody of parents deemed unfit and a risk to the child.
Nevertheless, the Childcare and Protection Agency Act 2009 seems inadequately drafted at first glance, not dealing in depth with the matters it covers. The Act consists of a total of eight pages only, while a comparable Act, the Trinidad and Tobago ‘Children’s Authority Act’ is thirty-one pages long and deals specifically with more wide-ranging matters affecting children under the care of the Authority, even including adoption matters and the handling of matters relating to the death of children while in the care of the Authority. Similarly, the