Amid da­ta sug­gest­ing that re­ports of gen­der-based vi­o­lence and child abuse are de­creas­ing, of­fi­cers of the TTPS Spe­cial Vic­tims Unit (SVU) are urg­ing par­ents to re­main vig­i­lant when in­tro­duc­ing new ro­man­tic part­ners in­to their house­holds as step-par­ents.

Dur­ing a TTPS me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Sackville Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, head of the unit, act­ing Supt Roger Reyes, cit­ed fig­ures com­piled by the po­lice be­tween Jan­u­ary and Ju­ly this year and com­pared them with the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od in 2025.

The fig­ures showed that child pro­tec­tion of­fences de­creased by 9.4 per cent.