Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

Re­port­ing from UN­GA in New York

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the Gov­ern­ment is for­mu­lat­ing some pro­pos­als to strength­en the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CATT), as she lament­ed the mur­der of 12-year-old Mari­ah Seenath.

Ad­dress­ing the child’s killing in Friend­ship Vil­lage, Ste Madeleine, on the fringes of the Unit­ed Na­tions Head­quar­ters in New York yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “The death of any­one by mur­der, by homi­cide, is a tragedy for all of us. And it is par­tic­u­lar­ly more trag­ic when it is a child. We share our con­do­lences with the fam­i­ly and the loved ones, but we have to keep work­ing.”

The PM added, “There are some ar­eas that have noth­ing to do with the drugs and the crime as far as we know. Her case might not have been one of those. There may have been do­mes­tic is­sues with­in fam­i­lies, and so we have to con­tin­ue to work with fam­i­lies to try to avert at­tacks and de­struc­tion.”

In her ad­dress to the UN­GA, the PM spoke about the coun­try’s cre­ation of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty, the Chil­dren’s Life Fund and ex­pand­ing ear­ly child­hood ed­u­ca­tion. She said this proves that even the small­est of na­tions can align do­mes­tic progress with glob­al am­bi­tions.

Asked whether, in light of the re­port­ed cir­cum­stances that plagued Seenath’s life, changes would be made to strength­en the CATT, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “Yes, we have some pro­pos­als go­ing for­ward.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not elab­o­rate on what those pro­pos­als would be.

Seenath, a Form Three stu­dent of San Fer­nan­do East Sec­ondary School, was dis­cov­ered dead around 12.50 pm last Sat­ur­day by a res­i­dent, about five feet in­to the bush­es off a track near the recre­ation ground in her neigh­bour­hood at Friend­ship Vil­lage, Ste Madeleine.

She had spent the night at her grand­moth­er’s home and re­turned to her own house short­ly af­ter 7 am, where she soaked her school uni­form and took a pho­to­graph of her fa­ther asleep in a ham­mock be­fore leav­ing again. It is be­lieved she was on her way back to her grand­moth­er’s home when she was at­tacked and dragged in­to the bush­es. She bore a bruise on her stom­ach and chest, and blades of grass were found around her neck.

An au­top­sy re­vealed the child was beat­en to death.