Lee An­na Ma­haraj

leean­na.ma­haraj@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter with the Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Gen­der and Child Af­fairs, Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, has joined with the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of T&T in deny­ing claims that male staff mem­bers may have been re­spon­si­ble for preg­nan­cies at some chil­dren’s homes.

The al­le­ga­tion was made by UNC MP Bar­ry Padarath dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence on the week­end.

Padarath said from time to time they get such in­for­ma­tion but want­ed to know ex­act­ly how many girls were im­preg­nat­ed, what be­came of the ba­bies, teenage moth­ers and those re­spon­si­ble for the preg­nan­cies.

Re­spond­ing to these claims yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Web­ster-Roy said the girls who en­tered the homes were al­ready preg­nant be­fore be­ing placed in the in­sti­tu­tions.

“The in­stances where girls be­came preg­nant while at the in­sti­tu­tions, the in­ves­ti­ga­tions would have re­vealed it was not from any staff mem­ber, and the mat­ter was re­port­ed to the po­lice and is cur­rent­ly be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed. The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty would have al­so in­di­cat­ed that we have girls who en­tered in­to care who were al­ready preg­nant,” Web­ster-Roy said.

Pressed fur­ther, the Min­is­ter said she is not privy to the de­tails of the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion, as it is cur­rent­ly be­ing han­dled by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

“I am not a po­lice of­fi­cer, so I would not be part of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion process. As min­is­ter, I would not have the in­ti­mate de­tails of every child or chil­dren’s homes. As min­is­ter, my re­la­tion­ship with the au­thor­i­ty goes through the board, as well as my in­ter­ac­tion with the chair­man of the board. Al­so, we must re­mem­ber that even though we seek in­for­ma­tion, we al­so have to re­spect peo­ple’s and chil­dren’s right to pri­va­cy as well,” she said.

The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty al­so de­nied Padarath’s claim in a re­lease is­sued on Mon­day evening.

The au­thor­i­ty said since its op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion eight years ago, there have on­ly been two in­stances of girls who be­came preg­nant while they were res­i­dents of chil­dren’s homes. It added, how­ev­er, that dur­ing their in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the mat­ters, it was de­ter­mined that no staff mem­ber was re­spon­si­ble for the girls be­com­ing preg­nant.

The au­thor­i­ty con­firmed that there were two re­cent cas­es of preg­nant girls at chil­dren’s homes, but said they were preg­nant be­fore their ar­rival at the homes and the rel­e­vant po­lice re­ports were made at that time. It said while at these homes, the girls were pro­vid­ed with care and in­ter­ven­tion to pre­pare them for moth­er­hood.

The au­thor­i­ty al­so re­mind­ed the pub­lic that chil­dren’s homes are man­aged by the boards of those homes and that it con­ducts reg­u­lar an­nounced and unan­nounced mon­i­tor­ing vis­its at all homes to en­sure they pro­vide for the safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty and wel­fare of the chil­dren in their care.

Web­ster-Roy was speak­ing at the U-Re­port Sec­ondary Schools Com­pe­ti­tion Awards cer­e­mo­ny, which was host­ed by UNICEF in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Bmo­bile and the Di­vi­sion of Gen­der and Child Af­fairs, at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters.

She praised the com­pe­ti­tion, as she said the min­istry’s goal is to in­clude more young peo­ple in digi­ti­sa­tion ini­tia­tives.