–as gov’t prepares to welcome home Guyanese displaced by hurricanes
THE United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has said Monday that it stands ready to help in whatever way it can with the relocation of Guyanese families rendered destitute by Hurricanes Irma and Maria.
The agency said that in keeping with the tenets of the Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC), it is particularly interested in the welfare of those children coming with their parents, and want to ensure that all systems are in place when they arrive here.
“Whether they are Guyanese or not, we want them to have access to basic services such as the birth registration, if they didn’t have; access to education; access to health; and the financial support that may be needed from the family back in other places,” UNICEF Country Representative, Ms Sylvie Fouet told the Guyana Chronicle on Monday.
Her comments come in the wake of a government-led operation to bring home those of its people who were living in the Caribbean and lost everything, even loved ones, when the two Category Five hurricanes struck.
According to Ms Fouet, the influx of families with children is all the more reason for having the Convention in place, so as to ensure that their needs are met.
The Convention is an international treaty which recognises the human rights of children. It covers various elements of children’s rights, among them child protection, adoption, abduction and maintenance relating to child support.
It also featured prominently on the agenda of the recently concluded Hague Conference of Private International Law (HCCH) hosted here by the Ministry of Legal Affairs.
Fouet said that while the framework is in place, what is critical to the process is having a conversation with the relevant players.
During the Hague Conference here last month, she said, an agreement was reached to work towards the four areas of the convention.
And with the appointment of Chancellor of the Judiciary, Justice Yonnette Cummings-Edwards and Chief Justice Roxanne George-Wiltshire, she said, there is some amount of “positiveness” that could come out from the conversations.
She said not only is there willingness and interest in going forward, but there is also need for the network to put that into forward motion. According to her, the issue now is putting the framework into motion.
“To look at those elements, you need to have a mechanism in place that can fix certain issues,” she said.
