Shas­tri Boodan

The Gov­ern­ment is prepar­ing to in­ten­si­fy its fight against child pornog­ra­phy, with Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der an­nounc­ing that new tech­nol­o­gy will soon be de­ployed to iden­ti­fy peo­ple in­volved in view­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing il­le­gal ma­te­r­i­al in­volv­ing chil­dren.

Alexan­der made the an­nounce­ment yes­ter­day while de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at a Na­tion­al Youth Fo­rum host­ed by the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty at the Cou­va-Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce au­di­to­ri­um on Cam­den Road, Cou­va.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Alexan­der said spe­cialised equip­ment would be ac­quired to as­sist law en­force­ment in de­tect­ing in­di­vid­u­als in­volved in the dis­tri­b­u­tion and con­sump­tion of child sex­u­al abuse ma­te­r­i­al.

Ex­press­ing strong con­dem­na­tion of the prac­tice, the min­is­ter de­scribed it as “a sick­en­ing act” com­mit­ted by adults and ques­tioned whether those who en­gage in child pornog­ra­phy could be trust­ed around chil­dren.

“We don’t know what you’re up to next or how you feel about chil­dren. Can we trust you to be around them?” he asked.

Alexan­der said the Gov­ern­ment planned to be­gin de­ploy­ing the tech­nol­o­gy as part of a broad­er strat­e­gy to tack­le the prob­lem.

“It’s not al­ways about the guns. It’s about the be­hav­iour of grown per­sons, adult men and adult women, and we need to ad­dress that,” he said.

The min­is­ter al­so warned young peo­ple about post­ing or dis­trib­ut­ing nude im­ages of them­selves on so­cial me­dia, stress­ing that such ac­tions could car­ry se­ri­ous le­gal con­se­quences.
He cau­tioned that mi­nors who share ex­plic­it pho­tographs of them­selves could po­ten­tial­ly face charges re­lat­ed to the dis­tri­b­u­tion of child pornog­ra­phy.

Much of Alexan­der’s ad­dress fo­cused on the dan­gers of gang cul­ture, crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and the in­flu­ence of so­cial me­dia on young peo­ple. He urged youths not to al­low gangs or on­line trends to dic­tate their lives or de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

Us­ing the anal­o­gy of a “re­mote con­trol” for the brain, Alexan­der warned young men against al­low­ing gang lead­ers to in­flu­ence their ac­tions.
He said young peo­ple who be­come in­volved in gangs could even­tu­al­ly find them­selves be­hind bars, sep­a­rat­ed from their fam­i­lies and stripped of their free­dom.

Re­fer­ring to the sit­u­a­tion in El Sal­vador, Alexan­der warned that crim­i­nals could face se­vere con­se­quences when they choose to dis­re­gard the law.

“Do you want that? Are you sure?” he asked the au­di­ence.

Alexan­der said the Na­tion­al Youth Fo­rum was de­signed to pro­vide young peo­ple with an op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­gage di­rect­ly with Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and law en­force­ment on is­sues af­fect­ing their lives and com­mu­ni­ties.

“This fo­rum is our voice, our fu­ture, shap­ing the na­tion,” he said.

He em­pha­sised that the event was not in­tend­ed to be a lec­ture from adults, but rather a plat­form for lis­ten­ing to the ex­pe­ri­ences, con­cerns and ideas of young peo­ple.

“Your ex­pe­ri­ence mat­ters. Your con­cern mat­ters. Your ideas mat­ter. And your vi­sion of this coun­try mat­ters.”

He al­so en­cour­aged young women to pri­ori­tise ed­u­ca­tion and in­de­pen­dence, con­trast­ing in­vest­ments in phys­i­cal ap­pear­ance with in­vest­ments in per­son­al de­vel­op­ment and learn­ing.
He urged them to re­mem­ber what he de­scribed as the “two Bs”—the brain ver­sus the body.

“When you fix your brain, it opens doors for­ev­er and ever and ever,” he said.

Alexan­der fur­ther en­cour­aged young peo­ple to look out for one an­oth­er and in­ter­vene when they see friends drift­ing to­wards crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty or gang in­volve­ment.
Re­fer­ring to re­cent in­ci­dents in which young men were killed dur­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, he warned that youths must recog­nise the po­ten­tial­ly fa­tal con­se­quences of a life of crime.

The min­is­ter said the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach to child pornog­ra­phy would be un­com­pro­mis­ing, with the planned tech­no­log­i­cal ca­pa­bil­i­ties form­ing part of a wider crack­down on of­fend­ers.

He urged those at­tend­ing the fo­rum to make pos­i­tive choic­es, sup­port their peers and be­come ac­tive par­tic­i­pants in shap­ing the fu­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go.