BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC):

A Caribbean law expert yesterday categorised many of the region's laws dealing with children as being outdated and not adequate in dealing with a range of social issues confronting that vulnerable segment of the population.

Head of the Caribbean Law Institute, Professor Velma Newton, made the charge as the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the United Nations Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF) launched an online Caribbean Law Institute database, making easily available all the laws from the English-speaking Caribbean relating to children to academics, members of the legal fraternity, students and the general public.

"Many of the laws need to be updated in line with current realities. There is also a need for a regional consensus on the age at which one ceases to be a child. At present, different ages exist for the purposes of offences, maintenance, etc," the former dean of the Faculty of Law at the UWI Cave Hill campus said during the media launch of the online database.