RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A year be­fore the Jus­tice Ju­dith Jones Task Force un­earthed hor­rif­ic sex­u­al abuse and phys­i­cal as­saults at chil­dren’s homes, the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion re­ceived re­ports from its work­ers that girls were be­ing re­moved from the St Jude’s Home for Girls un­der sus­pi­cious cir­cum­stances.

But in­stead of act­ing on it, chair­man of the PSA’s St Ann’s Hos­pi­tal sec­tion, Pre­ston George, claims the union’s ex­ec­u­tives and the po­lice did ab­solute­ly noth­ing to pro­tect the chil­dren.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, George said work­ers at the St Jude’s Home had spo­ken out against the re­moval of Venezue­lan chil­dren dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

“To­day, I ask who are those peo­ple from PSA who had in­for­ma­tion and nev­er took it to the po­lice. It’s known as aid­ing and abet­ting. You were giv­en in­for­ma­tion about chil­dren in these homes and you did noth­ing to help them,” George charged.

He said at that time, PSA mem­bers had writ­ten a let­ter to the PSA ex­ec­u­tive ex­press­ing their con­cern about the op­er­a­tions of the home and not­ing that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion should be done in­to the re­moval of the girls from the home.

On Au­gust 3, 2020, George said the PSA me­dia even wrote about the is­sues on the union’s web­site.

“We are once again call­ing on the au­thor­i­ties to in­ves­ti­gate the op­er­a­tions of the St Jude’s Home, es­pe­cial­ly why the young girls are re­moved from the com­pound at a time like this. All steps must be tak­en to pro­tect the health and safe­ty of these girls at all costs. Those who are re­spon­si­ble for tak­ing the girls off the com­pound for what­ev­er rea­son must be held ac­count­able,” the PSA ar­ti­cle not­ed then.

A source who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said at the time, the work­ers were un­der the im­pres­sion that the girls were tak­en else­where to be sex­u­al­ly vi­o­lat­ed by af­flu­ent peo­ple who con­tribute fi­nan­cial­ly to the homes.

On April 22, 2020, an­oth­er sto­ry was writ­ten high­light­ing the re­moval of Venezue­lan chil­dren from the said home, as well as the sus­pi­cious grant­i­ng of per­mis­sion for of­fi­cial vis­i­tors de­spite the COVID-19 pro­to­cols. Dur­ing those vis­its, ex­ter­nal in­di­vid­u­als re­port­ed­ly met the Venezue­lan girls in as pri­vate room at the fa­cil­i­ty, dis­trib­ut­ing care bags to them and al­low­ing them to chat and use their cell phones.

George said he was dis­ap­point­ed that af­ter some work­ers made re­ports to the po­lice noth­ing was done. He said three re­ports had been made to the Bel­mont po­lice, not­ing that of­fi­cers should have ex­e­cut­ed a war­rant on the home and spo­ken to the chil­dren and work­ers about the al­le­ga­tions.

In the 307-page Jus­tice Ju­dith Jones re­port, hor­rif­ic de­tails of sex­u­al, phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal abuse were re­vealed.

In the area of phys­i­cal abuse, the com­mit­tee re­port­ed: “Phys­i­cal abuse in­cludes the punch­ing, beat­ing, kick­ing, bit­ing, shak­ing, throw­ing, stab­bing, chok­ing, hit­ting (with a hand, stick, strap, or oth­er ob­jects), burn­ing, or oth­er forms of harm to a child; that is in­flict­ed by a per­son, whether an adult or old­er child, caus­ing non-ac­ci­den­tal phys­i­cal in­jury rang­ing from mi­nor bruis­es to se­vere frac­tures or death.”

The re­port said at St Jude’s, it was found that staff pro­mot­ed a cul­ture that en­cour­aged abuse among res­i­dents.

The 1997 Sab­ga Re­port al­so out­lined phys­i­cal as­sault and sex­u­al abuse but the po­lice and politi­cians of the time nev­er act­ed on it.