Last week, a con­tro­ver­sy erupt­ed over a re­port that was writ­ten 25 years ago by a Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed Task Force “To Re­view the Op­er­a­tions of Chil­dren’s Homes and In­sti­tu­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go.” The Chair­man was Robert Sab­ga.

Since the re­vival of this re­port, there have been var­i­ous lev­els of ac­cu­sa­tions and re­crim­i­na­tions about it and against those who gave their ser­vice to the task force. As with all such Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed task forces or com­mit­tees, their pri­ma­ry line of re­port­ing is back to the Cab­i­net which is ap­par­ent­ly what was done.

The key is­sue last week seemed to be the ques­tion of whether or not the re­port could be found. As it turned out, the re­port was wide­ly avail­able in plain sight based on the so­cial me­dia post­ings that were made about it. Con­tro­ver­sies erupt­ed about sup­pres­sion, de­struc­tion, and sani­ti­sa­tion of the re­port, none of which ap­pear now to be true. The Prime Min­is­ter gave in­struc­tions to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to find a copy of the re­port and to take ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion af­ter the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. So what hap­pened?

The Guardian re­vealed last Tues­day that on No­vem­ber 19, 2002, then in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Ramesh De­osaran made ref­er­ence to the re­port. Ac­cord­ing to Hansard, Sen­a­tor De­osaran said the fol­low­ing:

“But rais­ing the ques­tion of chil­dren’s homes pro­vid­ed an open­ing such as to re­mind us that al­most 15 years ago there was a re­port on chil­dren’s homes, not on­ly the prob­lems in terms of ad­min­is­tra­tion and in­fra­struc­ture but the ex­tent of in­cest and abuse in those homes, the de­gree of in­jury that took place in those homes. It is com­mon­ly called the Sab­ga Re­port. The gen­tle­man who did the re­port un­der the then Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment was Mr Robert Sab­ga who had a des­tiny of his own, as High Com­mis­sion­er to Cana­da. I would sug­gest that the min­is­ter look at that re­port care­ful­ly, and while the Gov­ern­ment is busy with the leg­isla­tive as­pects of this prob­lem in terms of the sub­stan­tive is­sue of chil­dren care, that par­tic­u­lar re­port, to­geth­er with an­oth­er one, which had to do with sit­u­a­tion­al­ly dis­placed chil­dren, be looked at in terms of the hor­rors fac­ing chil­dren in those pri­vate­ly-run homes.” (Hansard, Sen­ate, No­vem­ber 19, 2002, p 386).

This took place dur­ing a de­bate on The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty (Amend­ment) Bill 2002. In re­ply, the Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs and Act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, had this to say: “Be­fore I close, Mr Vice-Pres­i­dent, let me make the point that in re­la­tion to the is­sue that was raised by Sen Prof De­osaran re­gard­ing the re­port in re­la­tion to the fos­ter homes and that is­sue of abuse, be­tween the pe­ri­od 1991-1995, there were some at­tempts made to try to put ad­min­is­tra­tive arrange­ments in place in or­der to train peo­ple in the prop­er care of chil­dren. In fact, that par­tic­u­lar Sab­ga Re­port was used by the then Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment to ex­am­ine all the is­sues as they re­lat­ed to the care of chil­dren. The is­sues that were raised in that re­port were very re­veal­ing in cir­cum­stances where our so­ci­ety had de­pend­ed on a num­ber of fos­ter homes to en­sure care for our young chil­dren and for chil­dren who had suf­fered aban­don­ment by their fam­i­lies. That re­port did, in fact, in­form quite a num­ber of the poli­cies that were de­vel­oped dur­ing that pe­ri­od, es­pe­cial­ly as they re­lat­ed to the Unit­ed Na­tions Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child.” (Hansard, Sen­ate, No­vem­ber 19, 2002, p 396).

Out of the Sab­ga Re­port, there were a num­ber of leg­isla­tive en­act­ments. On No­vem­ber 19, 1999, the fol­low­ing bills were laid for First Read­ing in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives: (i) the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty Bill, (ii) the Chil­dren’s Com­mu­ni­ty Res­i­dences, Fos­ter Homes and Nurs­eries Bill, and (iii) the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Chil­dren) Bill. On De­cem­ber 3, 1999, the fol­low­ing oth­er bills were laid for First Read­ing in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives: (iv) the Adop­tion of Chil­dren Bill and (v) the Chil­dren (Amend­ment) Bill.

On De­cem­ber 3, 1999, de­bate start­ed on the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty Bill, and it con­tin­ued on De­cem­ber 10, 1999. The de­bate con­tin­ued on Jan­u­ary 14, 2000 and on that day, a pro­pos­al was made for the ap­point­ment of a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee to con­sid­er these five bills. The mem­bers of the JSC were (i) Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, (ii) Har­ry Par­tap, (iii) Manohar Ram­saran, (iv) Fuad Khan, (v) Fitzger­ald Hinds, and (vi) Roger Boynes. The Sen­a­tors who were ap­point­ed to this JSC were (i) Daphne Phillips; (ii) Vi­mala To­ta-Ma­haraj; (iii) Bar­bara Gray-Burke; (iv) Joan Yuille-Williams; (v) Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att and (vi) Er­ic St Cyr.

The JSC re­port was adopt­ed on Sep­tem­ber 27, 2000. The five bills were ap­proved that day with sup­port from both sides of the House. The next day all five bills were laid be­fore the Sen­ate for First Read­ing. On Oc­to­ber 3, 2000, they were passed with all sides of the Sen­ate vot­ing in favour. The Sen­ate amend­ments to the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty Bill were ap­proved on Oc­to­ber 6, 2000 in the Low­er House.