Gen­der Min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster Roy says she re­spond­ed prompt­ly to the re­ports of abuse at the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Home and Cri­sis Nurs­ery.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Web­ster-Roy said the TTPS’ Child Pro­tec­tion Unit has since agreed to con­duct pe­ri­od­ic vis­its to all the com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dences, es­pe­cial­ly those with both boys and girls.

The min­is­ter said on May 13th, 2024, she re­ceived an email with re­ports of abuse at the fa­cil­i­ty.

“As Min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Gen­der and Child Af­fairs, I will take the nec­es­sary ac­tion in re­sponse to in­for­ma­tion I re­ceive, as I am deeply con­cerned about the care and pro­tec­tion of our na­tion’s chil­dren,” she said.

Af­ter re­view­ing the in­for­ma­tion, she said she im­me­di­ate­ly gave an in­struc­tion to her per­ma­nent sec­re­tary to no­ti­fy the TTPS and Supt Claire Guy-Al­leyne, head of the Spe­cial Vic­tims Unit.

The TTPS Child Pro­tec­tion Unit sub­se­quent­ly re­moved three res­i­dents from the home. The min­is­ter said the mat­ter was al­so sent to the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go for their im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion.

The min­is­ter’s com­ment came in the wake of an ex­clu­sive Guardian Me­dia re­port about com­plaints that sev­er­al chil­dren had al­leged­ly been sex­u­al­ly and phys­i­cal­ly abused by an old­er res­i­dent over a six-year pe­ri­od at the home. Last week, the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit re­moved the al­leged per­pe­tra­tor from the home.

The sit­u­a­tion was raised by the home’s man­ag­er Ker­ri-Ann Leon Sing and sev­er­al care­givers, who said they felt the need to come to the me­dia as the home’s su­pe­ri­ors had failed to deal with the com­plaints over the years. They al­so al­leged­ly re­fused a re­quest to re­move the res­i­dent from the home.

The whistle­blow­ers claimed there were 25 in­ci­dents of sex­u­al­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate be­hav­iour by the al­leged per­pe­tra­tor against 11 chil­dren and even two dogs. There were al­so 113 re­port­ed in­ci­dents of mis­be­hav­iour against the child.

The sex­u­al in­ci­dents in­clud­ed pok­ing chil­dren’s pri­vate ar­eas with ob­jects, in­ap­pro­pri­ate touch­ing, sneak­ing in­to the bath­room while an­oth­er child is bathing, co­erc­ing a child in­to his bed, en­ter­ing an­oth­er child’s bed, rub­bing his gen­i­tals on an­oth­er child and fondling the pri­vate ar­eas of the home’s pets.

Mean­while, in a sep­a­rate re­lease, the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CATT) said it was work­ing close­ly with the TTPS to “de­ter­mine all the facts” in the mat­ter.

The au­thor­i­ty said it pro­vid­ed psy­choso­cial sup­port and med­ical care to the mi­nor and promised it would con­tin­ue.

“The au­thor­i­ty takes se­ri­ous­ly all re­ports of abuse in­volv­ing chil­dren in care and will con­tin­ue to en­sure that such re­ports are thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed,” the au­thor­i­ty said in its re­lease.

It al­so said there is a need to main­tain the safe­ty and con­fi­den­tial­i­ty of the per­son­al de­tails of the chil­dren in this mat­ter and will not di­vulge any de­tails of the child’s case.