Seventy in training on how to interview sex abuse victims

Seventy professionals and service providers from Government agencies and civil society are being trained in forensic interviewing of survivors of sexual abuse and multi-disciplinary responses to sexual abuse, according to a release today from the Ministry of Labour.

The training is a collaboration under the theme, “Break the Silence: Child Sexual Abuse”, between the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security, and non-governmental organisations, Forward Guyana and ChildLink Inc. with support from the United Nations Child’s Fund (UNICEF).

This training programme, being facilitated by International Facilitators in the field of the Child Advocacy, began today and will conclude on January 18, 2014 at the Guyana Police Force Training Complex, Camp Road.  The training is pivotal to operationalising aspects of the Sexual Offences Act, 2010, the release said.

In September 2013, the Ministry of Labour and non-governmental organisations, Forward Guyana and ChildLink Inc. signed a Memorandum of Understanding, to establish Guyana’s first Child Advocacy Centre. The Child Advocacy Centre will offer a child friendly environment staffed by forensic interviewers, counsellors and parenting skills educators. The release said that the Centre will lead the way in ensuring that survivors of sexual abuse only have to relate their experience once. This mechanism can be seen as an opportunity to reduce trauma and any fear of victimisation or stigma, the release added.