Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The task force set up by the TTPS to in­ves­ti­gate al­le­ga­tions of abuse at chil­dren’s homes raised in two sep­a­rate state-com­mis­sioned re­ports is no more.

Con­fir­ma­tion came from Su­per­in­ten­dent Claire Guy-Al­leyne, who led the team set up by for­mer act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob to in­ves­ti­gate claims of abuse out­lined in the Ju­dith Jones 2021 and Robert Sab­ga 1997 re­ports.

On ap­proach­ing the two-year an­niver­sary since the Jones re­port was made pub­lic, Guardian Me­dia sought an up­date from Guy-Al­leyne on how the task force’s work was pro­gress­ing. How­ev­er, she ex­plained why that team no longer ex­ists.

“We strug­gled a lot. We had per­sons who came for­ward and they backpedalled on us. We had to ac­tu­al­ly run them down and we did not get state­ments from them. Per­sons stopped com­ing for­ward. So, when it stopped, the task force was dis­solved. Be­cause re­mem­ber, the task force was re­al­ly po­lice of­fi­cers with­in the unit who were con­duct­ing nor­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tions,” she ex­plained.

Guy-Al­leyne said she could not re­mem­ber ex­act­ly when it was dis­solved as, “we had still left the av­enue open for if any­body want­ed to come for­ward and make a re­port”.

She lament­ed that the task force opened sev­er­al av­enues to make re­port­ing those crimes eas­i­er for whistle­blow­ers and sur­vivors of the abuse.

“We told them the lo­ca­tions they could have come to. At the time, Ms Coop­er (ACP Sharon Coop­er now re­tired) had a hot­line that was made pub­lic and avail­able to re­ceive calls from sur­vivors. You didn’t have to come to the sta­tion, we would have come and met you wher­ev­er you were to in­ter­view you. So, all of that was placed in the pub­lic do­main,” she said.

Guy-Al­leyne said there were some suc­cess­es and per­sons are be­fore the court. She could not give the ex­act num­ber of peo­ple be­fore the courts but promised to pro­vide it at a lat­er time.

How­ev­er, a for­mer state in­ves­ti­ga­tor who worked on the 2021 Jones re­port is ques­tion­ing why one of the strongest rec­om­men­da­tions from the team is yet to be im­ple­ment­ed.

The team sug­gest­ed the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a chil­dren’s com­mis­sion­er, who would have the pow­er to “is­sue, sus­pend and re­voke li­cences of chil­dren’s homes, over­see child sup­port cen­tres, in­ves­ti­gate com­plaints made by or on be­half of chil­dren and to mon­i­tor the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CATT) and its op­er­a­tions”.

Ac­cord­ing to Mar­cus Kissoon, the chil­dren’s com­mis­sion­er will be a key el­e­ment in state ap­pa­ra­tus.

“We have skilled peo­ple, and we don’t have huge in­fra­struc­tur­al is­sues. What we do have is a poor abil­i­ty to man­age and to have a ded­i­cat­ed body of in­tegri­ty to hold the state and homes ac­count­able for the well­be­ing of chil­dren,” he said.

He added, “It should be de­signed in a way where the com­mis­sion­er and com­mis­sion­er’s team are di­rect­ly in­volved in these homes. Chil­dren’s homes are sup­posed to be the safest spaces from adult per­pe­tra­tors and enough ev­i­dence has shown there is peer-to-peer abuse and there is no way we should be ashamed in en­sur­ing we have some­one over­see­ing a sys­tem that does not al­low these things to oc­cur.”

Kissoon, who is al­so a child rights ac­tivist, ref­er­enced an ex­clu­sive Guardian Me­dia re­port which al­leged there were 25 in­ci­dents of sex­u­al­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate be­hav­iour per­pe­trat­ed by a child at a chil­dren’s home in Cen­tral Trinidad. The ar­ti­cle re­port­ed that the in­ci­dents start­ed in 2018.

He re­gret­ted that it took whistle­blow­ers to bring the is­sue to the fore.

“Whistle­blow­ing is a shame­ful re­al­i­ty when it comes to safe­guard­ing chil­dren,” he said.

“What be­comes prob­lem­at­ic is when adults feel like they need to hide the kinds of chil­dren that ex­ist with­in their homes for what­ev­er rea­son. One can as­sume it is for po­lit­i­cal rea­sons, not elec­toral pol­i­tics of course, one can as­sume it is to main­tain a home’s im­age. Any home that needs to have a whistle­blow­er is not de­signed and ded­i­cat­ed to re­spond­ing to chil­dren’s needs, in­clud­ing their safe­ty, be­hav­iour­al prob­lems, in­clud­ing clin­i­cal re­sponse and pro­gram­mat­ic re­sponse.”

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, who has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for gen­der and child af­fairs, was asked if the state is con­sid­er­ing in­sti­tut­ing the chil­dren’s com­mis­sion­er.

Re­spond­ing via email, she said, “The Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Di­vi­sion has com­menced the process to do an in­de­pen­dent as­sess­ment of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, giv­en its roles and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and the way it is con­fig­ured, if it is the most ap­pro­pri­ate mod­el to ad­e­quate­ly un­der­take the child pro­tec­tion man­date. There­fore, the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a chil­dren’s om­buds­man or com­mis­sion­er is de­pen­dent on the out­come of this as­sess­ment.”

Asked what rec­om­men­da­tions were im­ple­ment­ed from the 2021 re­port, the min­is­ter said, “Over the last few years, var­i­ous state agen­cies have been im­ple­ment­ing a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of more than 100 rec­om­men­da­tions.”

She added that while she ac­knowl­edges there is work to be done, she was sat­is­fied with the ac­com­plish­ments thus far and that chil­dren are safer in state care.