While Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has claimed that his Gov­ern­ment was not aware of the con­tents of the Robert Sab­ga re­port, Hansard records have shown that for­mer PNM gov­ern­ments of which he was a part, not on­ly knew of the re­port but ac­knowl­edged its im­por­tance in in­form­ing poli­cies to pro­tect chil­dren.

On Mon­day, Row­ley said, “All this time, I and my Gov­ern­ment were to­tal­ly un­aware of the con­tents of a Sab­ga Re­port which is now be­ing se­ri­alised in the me­dia.”

He added, “Through the lo­cal me­dia, I am now dis­cov­er­ing that there was/is a Sab­ga Re­port pro­duced by in­ves­ti­ga­tors who in­spect­ed and col­lect­ed in­for­ma­tion from nine chil­dren’s homes and de­scribed some of the most aw­ful con­di­tions and treat­ment met­ed out by per­son/s as­so­ci­at­ed with child­care and cus­tody at the na­tion’s care cen­tres.”

How­ev­er, Par­lia­ment’s Hansard records have shown that 20 years ago - on No­vem­ber 19, 2000 - In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Prof Ramesh De­osaran spoke of the ex­is­tence of the re­port and in­vit­ed then Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs Camille Robin­son-Reg­is to read it.

De­osaran was speak­ing dur­ing de­bate on a bill to amend the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty Act.

“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,” De­osaran said then.

De­osaran told the Sen­ate the re­port had ev­i­dence of grave abuse of chil­dren.

“I cer­tain­ly do not wish to call the names of those homes, but we have the ev­i­dence as to the ex­tent, as I said, not on­ly of sheer ne­glect, but hurt­ful in­juries, sex­u­al abuse, in homes to which the Gov­ern­ment pro­vides sub­si­dies. I have sug­gest­ed in such con­text that the Min­istry of Fi­nance have some over­see­ing pow­ers over how those mon­eys which are al­lo­cat­ed to those hous­es, are used. There have been in­stances fol­low­ing in­quiries by dif­fer­ent min­istries that the mon­eys have not been used for the ob­jec­tives that were in­tend­ed. So I there­fore wish to bring, with re­spect, to the at­ten­tion of the var­i­ous min­is­ters in­volved, this mat­ter of child-care and the abuse in these homes, us­ing as lever­age the two re­ports to which I re­ferred,” he said.

Robin­son-Reg­is ac­knowl­edged the ex­is­tence of the re­port and told the Sen­ate it was be­ing used by the then gov­ern­ment to in­form pol­i­cy.

“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,” Robin­son-Reg­is told the Sen­ate.

Hansard re­ports al­so showed the re­port was raised again on June 2, 2006, by for­mer Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment Manohar Ram­saran dur­ing de­bate on the Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Bill.

“We ap­point­ed a com­mit­tee which was head­ed by Dr Robert Sab­ga to in­ves­ti­gate homes in this coun­try, and that re­port is some­where in the Par­lia­ment. It was laid in Par­lia­ment,” he said.

Dr Row­ley has asked Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob to find the re­port and to act on it.

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