Recruiting for Spotlight domestic violence initiative on hold

The recruitment process of the Spotlight Initiative has been put on hold, according to Sylvie Fouet, UNICEF’s Representative here, even as several organisations have expressed concern about aspects of the project such as restorative justice in domestic violence as they believe such settings in Guyana will put the safety and well-being of survivors at risk.

The Spotlight Initiative is a global, multi-year partnership between the European Union and the United Nations to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls and in the Caribbean it is being implemented in Guyana, Belize, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

Danuta Radzik and Josephine Whitehead of Help and Shelter, Karen de Souza and Wintress White of Red Thread, Vidyaratha Kissoon and Janice Jackson all signed their names to a recent letter in this newspaper in which they expressed serious concerns about a specific aspect of the project.