{"id":31624,"date":"2026-08-28T19:39:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T23:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/?p=31624"},"modified":"2026-08-28T19:39:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T23:39:30","slug":"over-130-gbv-survivors-accessed-hope-and-justice-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/over-130-gbv-survivors-accessed-hope-and-justice-centre\/","title":{"rendered":"Over 130 GBV survivors accessed Hope and Justice Centre"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">-for first half of 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">-by Jordan Alkins <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gender-based violence&nbsp;is&nbsp;one of Guyana&#8217;s most persistent social challenges, but two years ago, one initiative set out to change how survivors access help.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NCN News&nbsp;recently&nbsp;revisited&nbsp;the Hope and Justice Center at Lusignan to&nbsp;chronicle&nbsp;the&nbsp;impact it has made, where it was revealed that over 130 persons accessed its service in just the first half of 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since it opened its&nbsp;doors,&nbsp;the Hope and Justice Center at Lusignan, East Coast Demerara,&nbsp;has been&nbsp;a lifeline for survivors of gender-based violence across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This&nbsp;was emphasized by&nbsp;the Manager of the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Policy Unit, Dr Cona Husbands, during an exclusive interview with NCN News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The center was designed as a one-stop facility, meaning survivors do not have to travel from office to office to get help.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Persons&nbsp;can access medical attention, legal aid, counseling, and law enforcement supportunder a single roof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since that first year, the center has seen a steady stream of\u00a0persons\u00a0walking through its\u00a0doors, though the numbers have shifted year on year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201c<strong><em>Since the center would\u2019ve opened to\u00a0now\u00a0we saw Over 700 women and men coming to the center and there has been a steady\u00a0flow \u00a0over\u00a0the year\u00a0in\u00a02024 \u00a0we\u00a0had over 300\u00a0in 2025 we had little under 300 and then from January 2026 to June this\u00a0year \u00a0we\u00a0had over a 130 coming to the center<\/em><\/strong>,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meanwhile,&nbsp;Dr Husbands says domestic violence remains the leading reason&nbsp;personsseek help at the center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Further, she said&nbsp;a significant number of those cases involved&nbsp;violence between parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201c<strong><em>From our data the main reason person walk through this door is for domestic violence it\u2019s\u00a0still \u00a0prevalent\u00a0and it still the main reason the main population we serve\u00a0hereWe\u00a0have a lot of person coming in with inter partners violence and now because of the laws has changed and it has extended\u00a0it\u00a0\u00a0scope\u00a0to family violence we are seeing families coming aunts reporting nephews, grandparents reporting children in terms of abuse and elder abuse and so on<\/em><\/strong>,\u201d Dr Husbands explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Unit has also rolled out\u00a0several\u00a0programs aimed at widening access to justice, among them a &#8216;Legal Day&#8217; initiative.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>-for first half of 2026 -by Jordan Alkins Gender-based violence&nbsp;is&nbsp;one of Guyana&#8217;s most persistent social challenges, but two years ago, one initiative set out to change how survivors access help.&nbsp;&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31634,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[365,350],"tags":[488,1233,370,1231,1232,412,405],"class_list":["post-31624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-development","category-news","tag-488","tag-gender-based-violence","tag-guyana","tag-hope-and-justice","tag-lusignan","tag-ncn-guyana","tag-ncn-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31625,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31624\/revisions\/31625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}