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Monday, June 16, 2025

Young: Staff, children removed from abusive children’s homes

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1129 days ago
20220513
Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young at yesterday’s meeting of the Standing Finance Committee (SFC) of Parliament.

Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young at yesterday’s meeting of the Standing Finance Committee (SFC) of Parliament.

Parliament of T&T

Chester Sam­bra­no

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Stu­art Young, has said staff who have been iden­ti­fied as cul­prits in the abuse of chil­dren at chil­dren’s homes and care cen­tres have been re­moved from those in­sti­tu­tions.

He added that the chil­dren have al­so been “ex­tract­ed” from these homes for their safe­ty.

The mat­ter was raised dur­ing a meet­ing of the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee (SFC) of Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.

“On the re­ceipt of any re­port, not on­ly the Jus­tice Ju­dith Jones re­port, the child be­ing in a po­si­tion where he or she may be in dan­ger, im­me­di­ate­ly the re­spon­si­ble peo­ple in the (Chil­dren’s) Au­thor­i­ty will move in and deal with that sit­u­a­tion and ex­tract the child,” Young said.

“So to try and cre­ate a nar­ra­tive or paint a pic­ture, or even a sug­ges­tion that these chil­dren are be­ing left there in harm’s way is sim­ply not so.”

When Princes Town MP Bar­ry Padarath sought to find out just how many chil­dren were re­moved from the trou­bled homes, his ques­tion was de­nied by the chair­man of the com­mit­tee, Bridgid An­nisette-George, on the grounds that it did not qual­i­fy as part of the work of the SFC.

Mo­ments ear­li­er, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy was asked by Padarath whether al­ter­nate arrange­ments would be made at oth­er fa­cil­i­ties for the chil­dren who are housed at the homes iden­ti­fied as abu­sive.

How­ev­er, the min­is­ter said the phi­los­o­phy of the Gov­ern­ment point­ed in a dif­fer­ent di­rec­tion.

The St Jude’s Home for Girls.

The St Jude’s Home for Girls.

“The phi­los­o­phy of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty and the phi­los­o­phy of this Gov­ern­ment is not to put chil­dren in in­sti­tu­tions, so one of the things we are try­ing to im­prove is our kin­ship care, that is iden­ti­fy­ing suit­able fam­i­lies, im­prov­ing the fos­ter care sys­tem, as well as adop­tion,” she said.

The Jus­tice Ju­dith Jones re­port on state-run and state-as­sist­ed chil­dren’s homes and care cen­tres sent shock waves through­out the pop­u­la­tion, as it re­vealed nu­mer­ous cas­es of mal­treat­ment at sev­er­al in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing phys­i­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal and sex­u­al abuse, gang rape and pros­ti­tu­tion.

The 307-page re­port, ti­tled Safe­guard­ing Chil­dren in Com­mu­ni­ty Res­i­dences and Child Sup­port Cen­tres in Trinidad and To­ba­go, was laid in Par­lia­ment on April 29, 2022.

Fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery, there were calls for firm ac­tion to be tak­en to pro­tect the chil­dren at these homes.

On­ly Thurs­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said that there was no im­me­di­ate plan to cut fund­ing or close down any non-com­pli­ant chil­dren’s homes, even in light of the re­port. In­stead, he said the Gov­ern­ment is act­ing on the rec­om­men­da­tions of the com­mit­tee.

“But we have not let the is­sue fall through the cracks,” he added.

Cur­rent­ly, there are ap­prox­i­mate­ly 580 chil­dren in chil­dren’s homes across the coun­try.

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