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Collective effort must lead way in tackling youth crime and violence — Regional Summit hears
Youth violence and crime in the Caribbean demand a regional solution, Secretary General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Irwin LaRocque, told representatives of youth organizations from across the Caribbean, yesterday.
He was at the time addressing the opening of two-day Caribbean summit aimed at examining and redefining violence prevention solutions for young people. The conference is being held Marriot Hotel in Kingston.
“It is a regional problem that demands a regional solution. It not only requires the full co-operation of all our countries but also all the stakeholders within the member states.
“The multi-state, multi-sectoral response to this challenge is vital for us to succeed in defeating it,” LaRocque told the gathering.
The CARICOM Secretary General noted, too, that youth are the demographic that is most affected by crime and violence and that some of the main findings of recent studies are that the majority of victims, as well as perpetrators of crimes recorded by the police, are young males 18 to 35 years old.
He alluded to a UNDP report as indicating that the Caribbean has some of the highest figures of youth convicted of crime with at least 80 percent of prosecuted crimes being committed by young people between the ages 19 and 29 years old.
“There are a number of socio-economic determinants of crime, not least of which is the high youth unemployment rate in the region of 25 percent in 2017.
That is three times the adult average and highest among young women ages 18 to 30 at 33 percent,” he said, adding that to combat this scourge, Caribbean leaders approved the CARICOM Crime and Security Strategy in 2013, which incorporates the CARICOM Social Development and Crime Prevention Action Plan.
Meanwhile, Chief of the Party at the United States Agency for International Development’s Community, Family and Youth Resilience (CFYR) Debra Walberg explained that the programme is part of 15 communities in Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis and Guyana.
A section of the attendees of the Caribbean Summit on Youth Crime Prevention
“Our goal is to reach youth in these communities through family counselling, after-school programmes, workforce training and more. When youth have opportunities to build strong relationships, learn new skills and set goals for themselves, they can become leaders of positive change in their communities.
She said that over the past three years, CFYR has been with these youth, local leaders and governments to support resilience among individuals, households and communities and reduce crime and violence.
The organisers said that the region has the highest rate of victimization by homicide, assault, and threat in the world.
The opening ceremony was also addressed by Guyana’s Minister of Social Cohesion, George Norton, and Muriel Mafico, UNICEF deputy representative for the Eastern Caribbean.
The conference brought together leaders from youth movements, Governments, civil society, development organisations and academia that crime and security is an issue that is having an impact on all the 15-members of the regional integration grouping.
The forum is being hosted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, UNICEF, the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the London-based Commonwealth Secretariat, the St. Lucia-based Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Commission, and the Caribbean Learning for Youth Networking and Change Sessions (LYNCS) Network.
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