Child violence will be subject of House hearings this week
By The Star Staff
The island House of Representatives will hold hearings entitled “Child Violence and the Impact on Our Communities: Whose Responsibility Is It?” on Wednesday and Thursday, House Vice Speaker Lydia Méndez Silva announced Monday.
“Given the high incidence of child violence on the island, for yours truly and the House of Representatives it is a priority to promote a dialogue between the government sectors, the Legislature, non-profit entities and citizens in general, to discuss existing public policies, problems in their implementation, the different modalities of child violence and current statistics, in order to present possible solutions and alternatives that allow us to address this social problem,” said Méndez Silva, the House District 21 representative.
The conversation will be held on two consecutive days, with two different panels. On Wednesday, several heads of agencies and/or agency and institution representatives will participate. Each will express themselves from their experience, capacity and jurisdiction on everything concerning the issue of child violence and how it has directly impacted communities.
The second panel will take place on Thursday and will feature the participation of several organizations, associations and households.
“Child violence is a social problem that negatively affects the physical, mental and emotional health and integrity of children and young people under the age of 18,” said Méndez Silva, who chairs the House Community Impact Committee. “It is imperative that we come together as a society to minimize this evil, while protecting the lives of the thousands of children who, on a daily basis, are subjected to patterns of abuse.”
She noted that hearings will also focus on reinforcing and proposing new strategies focused on preventing and educating the population to combat violence in all its forms on the island, in particular violence against children. A timetable for new public policy advances will also be discussed, the legislator added.
“We trust that this conversation will have good results and will help us refocus the efforts we have worked on for years, to implement an integrated work agenda that includes the agencies concerned, nonprofit organizations and the social component necessary to prevent this situation, which unfortunately, continues to affect so many communities in the country,” Méndez Silva said.