The Government, through the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, allotted $150M in 2024 to combat sexual offences and gender-based violence (GBV).
Human Services Minister, Dr Vindhya Persaud spoke of the importance of direct allotments to these and similar social issues. She was, at the time, speaking at the Ministry’s end-of-year press conference on Tuesday.
Minister Persaud said in 2020 there were no direct allotments to many issues such as countering trafficking in persons, sexual offences, or gender-based violence.
Among the initiatives carried out in tackling these matters include, Guyana’s first comprehensive model to respond to GBV. Dr Persaud noted that progress was measured, and for the first time, there was a 33% decrease seen in murders related to domestic violence.
“It speaks to a lot of the work we are doing,” she said.
Additionally, through the Ministry’s 914 hotline, 293 of the 14,000 calls received were directly related to domestic violence or GBV cases. Another 300 were directly related to child protection or child abuse cases.
Minister Persaud highlighted the significance of the level of intervention regarding these calls.
“We have been able to help over 1,500 persons who called in solidly with support through the (Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Policy Unit) and also through our various avenues,” she noted.
The Minister also made mention to Guyana’s first one-stop model, the Hope and Justice Centres, which is a collaboration between the Human Services Ministry and the Ministry of Legal Affairs, and is supported by the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) ‘Support for the Criminal Justice System’ programme. There are two centres, the first at Lusignan, East Coast Demerara, and the second and bigger centre at Vergenoegen, Region Three.
The centres are set to complement the holistic programmes and policies that the government, through the Ministries of Legal Affairs and Human Services, have since put in place to tackle violence within society such as the Family Violence Act.
Dr Persaud further said in addition to the GBV Policy, GBV Framework, and GBV Model, a new initiative will be launched in 2025 to complete this set. It will be focused on perpetrators, with special emphasis on men, undergoing intervention, prevention, and rehabilitation.
“We’ve been doing a lot of work through the Gender Affairs Bureau and the GBV unit focusing on anger management, conflict resolution, (and) training persons.
“I hope swiftly not even gradually, we can reduce the numbers that we see every day,” said Minister Persaud.
Dr Persaud further highlighted the work of the Counter Trafficking in Persons (CTIP) Department.
“They have reached out to thousands of persons in terms of awareness training, they’ve done 25 raids, we have identified a number of alleged suspected victims of trafficking, and we have also been working to expand and strengthen our shelter programme for counter trafficking in persons. We have maintained for seven years a Tier One ranking when we speak of counter trafficking in persons and we continue to work internally with our standard operating procedures so that we can have excellent collaboration and seamless work with our partners.”
In addition to these programmes and initiatives, the Minister stressed the importance of reporting issues and providing feedback.
“A lot of it starts with reporting and we want to tell people continue to use the 914 hotline because it’s a direct avenue to all the support services of this Ministry.
“Feedback is very, very important. And in addition to the social media avenue for feedback, direct feedback is also critical as we work to improve, strengthen our efficiency and our ethicacy as a Ministry,” she said.
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