The regional meeting, which is being held at the Jamaica Conference Centre from 6th July to 7th July, will provide an opportunity for participating CARICOM member states to share experiences, identify and adopt best practices in addressing commercial sexual exploitation of children, and create a framework of regional co-operation in combating the problem.
Jamaica, which will host the two-day meeting for the first time, Trinidad & Tobago, Suriname, Belize, Bahamas, St. Lucia, Antigua, St Vincent & the Grenadines, St Kitts & Nevis, Grenada, Dominica and Haiti are among the countries set to participate.
Organisations such as the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, CARIOCM Council for Human Services Development and the United Nations Children Fund are also confirmed participants.
The meeting is being organised by the Child Development Agency and the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), with the support of the Inter-American Children’s Institute.
It is being held under the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Children in the Inter-American System Project, commonly referred to as the GOJ/IIN Child Rights Project. The project is funded by the Canadian International Development Agency.
The project is aimed at fortifying the capacity of national institutions to generate mechanisms for the defence and promotion of children’s rights, as well as strengthening public policy, legislation and monitoring systems, with regard to these rights.
The project is being implemented in Colombia, Guatemala and Jamaica.
(Parts of this article were written with content submitted in a Jamaica Observer publication)