Dear Editor,
I read with stunned disbelief the caption stating “Child protection officers suspended for allegedly dragging girl on road…” which accompanied a shocking photo earlier this week of two officers of the Child Protection Agency dragging a schoolgirl in public view in the vicinity of Stabroek Square. There is no need to add the qualifier “allegedly” before the word ‘dragging’; the picture, not AI generated, is pellucid and has not been denied, and presents no other possible explanation! As a human being, as a man, as the father of a girl child, I am still trying to process this image and am wondering what part of “protection” do the two ‘child protection officers’ – do they hear their job title, “protection”!? – not comprehend, as part of their functions.
Regardless of what may have previously transpired to bring about this course of action in public view, this photograph represents the antithesis of what the Child Protection Agency is supposed to represent, as a safe haven for children and parents to turn to for support, counselling and care.
True to form, the Minister responsible has come out with a statement about zero-tolerance against her staff who exhibit this type of behaviour towards children. Interestingly, the Chronicle of 24 April 2023 carried a headline about a “Zero-tolerance approach to children on the streets”. Could it perchance be the case that these two types of “zero tolerance” create a conundrum in the minds of our policymakers?
The zero-tolerance mantra mimics the position of another Minister in January this year, this time in response to violence and bullying in schools. To the two lady Ministers, I respectfully say, trotting out a zero-tolerance policy after the fact is unacceptable. In such circumstances, the horse has already bolted from the stable; what is required is not these types of after-the-fact platitudes, but rather a proactive, hands-on approach to eradicate these types of behaviour, so that there would be nothing left to “tolerate”.
Do we have a zero-tolerance policy in Guyana for measles, or polio? The answer is no; in fact, we don’t need such policies, because those diseases have over the years been already eradicated! So too should it be with child abuse, especially when carried out by persons who are supposed to be preventing such occurrences, or violence and bullying in school. Begone with them all!
The quality and calibre of Ministers that we get is a function of the persons on the list of candidates for an election (technocrats apart) who are picked by the winning presidential candidate, whose name appears on the top of list. The extant constitutional arrangement is that the electorate has no say in who makes it on to the list before the election, nor in which names are extracted afterward, for Minis-terial and/or Parliamentary positions.
In the cases of Minister Vindhya Persaud, a medical doctor by training and Minister Sonia Parag, an attorney-at-law, apart from being party loyalists, they both have special skills which derive from their respective University education. Alas, neither of them it would seem is a neat, exact fit for their portfolios, although there is no denying that they do possess skills and experience relevant for the job.
But that ought not to be fatal, indeed all is not lost: in my own personal experience, my father, Neville Bissember Snr, of blessed memory, an experienced Attorney known for his cross-examination skills, was the first Minister of Health in the Independence Cabinet. In my free private political education that I received while chatting as an adult with him in the evenings, I asked him once how he managed to cope with a portfolio like Health, which was beyond his area of expertise.
His answer was simple: “You think I stupid!? I used to surround myself with the technical experts who knew the field and I always listened to them and sought out their advice before making any major decisions” (I recall vividly Dr. Charlie Nicholson, then Chief Medical Officer and Dr. Goel, an Ophthalmologist from India, as two such persons). I know for my late father he was immensely proud that the hospital staff never went on strike under his watch; this he had attributed to his ability to listen and his willingness to negotiate compromises with the medical staff whenever, for example, government policy clashed with technical best practice.
Along these lines and with the greatest of respect to the two distinguished Ministers, I pray that, should they see even an iota of merit in the methodology which my late father had successfully adopted, then I commend it to them in all humility, with the best of intentions meant for our young women and girls.