St Johns, September 24 (NNN-RHC) -- Chief Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of the UNICEF Office for the Eastern Caribbean Area, Frederic Unterreiner, said the agency, which advocates for the rights of a child, has fostered partnerships with regional entities to achieve this mandate.

“The issue of child abuse was for many years not sufficiently documented, there was lack of data and lack of dialogue within families and societies about it.

And this is why we found that it is urgent to ‘Break the Silence’ and this is the title of the campaign that was launched in 2012,” Unterreiner said.

“Break the silence means that children, families and institutions need to break the silence and speak and address it so this is why we try to expand the existing partnerships and include new partnerships.”

Meanwhile, UNICEF has also partnered with the OECS Commission and the Department for International Development (DIFID) Safeguarding Project to develop strategies for detecting and reporting child sexual abuse cases.