Kali­fa Clyne

Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh says leg­is­la­tion was be­ing looked at by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to pro­claim ful­ly the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty.He said that dur­ing the in­stal­la­tion of the fi­nal two mem­bers to the au­thor­i­ty's board yes­ter­day at his min­istry's of­fice, Port-of-Spain.He said the nec­es­sary leg­is­la­tion was be­ing looked at by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and it would be go­ing to Par­lia­ment short­ly.Mean­while, Ra­mad­hars­ingh said, the au­thor­i­ty had been tak­ing the mes­sage of child pro­tec­tion to the streets and had con­duct­ed out­reach pro­grammes in vul­ner­a­ble ar­eas.At yes­ter­day's ap­point­ment, Ra­mad­hars­ingh said the board of the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty was now com­plet­ed and was on its way to open­ing its ser­vices to the pub­lic.Dr Samuel Shafe and Reaaz Dabiedeen, whose back­grounds are in child psy­chol­o­gy and ac­count­ing re­spec­tive­ly, were the fi­nal two ap­point­ments to the nine-mem­ber board.

Ra­mad­hars­ingh said when the Gov­ern­ment came in­to pow­er the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty was be­ing set up but was faced with chal­lenges.He out­lined them as a de­plet­ed mem­ber­ship, a need to ac­quire premis­es as well as a need to or­gan­ise nec­es­sary funds.Shafe said there was a lot to be done as most of the things be­ing done, in terms of the pro­tec­tion of chil­dren, were be­ing done by non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions (NGOs).Chair­man of the board and for­mer judge, Annes­tine Sealy, said it was in the process of ac­quir­ing staff for ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions for the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty to open its ser­vices.She said the board had ac­quired a build­ing on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, but it was not ready. She de­scribed it as a con­tin­u­ing process.