KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy is de­scrib­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s con­sid­er­a­tion to use the Na­tion­al Care and Em­pow­er­ment Cen­tre (NCEC) to house de­por­tees from the Unit­ed States as an in­sult to the na­tion’s chil­dren.

Re­spond­ing via Face­book to a Guardian Me­dia ar­ti­cle on Pi­paro res­i­dents’ con­cerns about hous­ing de­por­tees at the fa­cil­i­ty, Web­ster-Roy said it was al­so a be­tray­al of pub­lic trust.

She called on Gov­ern­ment to im­me­di­ate­ly “halt this ill-ad­vised plan.” She said the fa­cil­i­ty must be re­turned to its in­tend­ed use—pro­tect­ing the vul­ner­a­ble, not pun­ish­ing them—urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to put chil­dren first.

“The re­cent news that the Gov­ern­ment is con­sid­er­ing re­pur­pos­ing the Pi­paro fa­cil­i­ty to house de­por­tees is deeply alarm­ing and must be con­demned in the strongest terms. Un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment, we in­vest­ed mil­lions of dol­lars to trans­form and re­con­fig­ure this fa­cil­i­ty in­to a con­sol­i­dat­ed child sup­port cen­tre—a place of refuge, heal­ing, and hope for our most vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren,” Web­ster-Roy said.

Last week, Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge re­vealed that 21 Trinida­di­an na­tion­als—in­clud­ing three sex of­fend­ers and a con­vict­ed mur­der­er—were set to be de­port­ed from the US v Sturge sug­gest­ed the Pi­paro Em­pow­er­ment Cen­tre (PEC) was a po­ten­tial fa­cil­i­ty to house de­por­tees who are with­out fam­i­ly sup­port.

How­ev­er, the cen­tre was con­vert­ed to the NCEC, which the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of­fi­cial­ly opened on Oc­to­ber 30, 2024, to pro­vide safe spaces for vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren.

Pi­paro res­i­dents have ex­pressed deep con­cerns about Sturge’s con­sid­er­a­tion, with some fear­ing that de­por­tees with crim­i­nal records could pose a threat to the com­mu­ni­ty.

In her post, Web­ster-Roy said that every inch of the space was care­ful­ly de­signed and cus­tomised to meet the unique needs of chil­dren in cri­sis. She said it was built with pur­pose, com­pas­sion, and fore­sight.

“And now, the very in­di­vid­u­als who, while in op­po­si­tion, crit­i­cised me re­lent­less­ly as Min­is­ter for Gen­der and Child Af­fairs—claim­ing there were not enough safe spaces for chil­dren—have the au­dac­i­ty to turn around and con­vert a child pro­tec­tion fa­cil­i­ty in­to a de­por­tee hold­ing bay? That is not just bad pol­i­cy—it is shame­ful,” the for­mer min­is­ter said.

Web­ster-Roy said the move was not on­ly what she de­scribed as short-sight­ed and reck­less but a clear in­di­ca­tion of the Gov­ern­ment’s dis­re­gard for child wel­fare and com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty. She said chil­dren, Pi­paro res­i­dents, and the en­tire na­tion de­serve bet­ter.