Geisha Kow­lessar

"We have to hold some of these doc­tors and start jail­ing them."This was the ad­vice head of the po­lice Vic­tims and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit, Mar­garet Samp­son-Browne, gave yes­ter­day as one of the pos­si­ble ways to curb the alarm­ing rate of teenage preg­nan­cy in the coun­try.Her com­ment came in the wake of state­ments by Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh that there were some 2,500 preg­nan­cies among school­girls each year.

Gopeesingh made the state­ment in the Sen­ate on Tues­day as he re­spond­ed to a ques­tion filed by In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Dr Vic­tor Wheel­er. The min­is­ter said based on his 27 years as a gy­nae­col­o­gist work­ing in the pub­lic sec­tor, of every 15 new pa­tients in the an­te­na­tal clin­ic, ten are teenagers.Urg­ing the coun­try to get a han­dle on statu­to­ry rape, the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter added: "If peo­ple (fa­thers) are ap­pre­hend­ed, there might be fear among the per­pe­tra­tors," and there­fore it could serve as a de­ter­rent to statu­to­ry rape.

Samp­son-Browne, who ad­mit­ted yes­ter­day this was the first time she was made aware of such sta­tis­tics, said it was a pity the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry did not pass this in­for­ma­tion to the po­lice in the first in­stance.Apart from doc­tors, she said every­one, in­clud­ing the po­lice, teach­ers, prin­ci­pals, neigh­bours and par­ents, must be held ac­count­able. The doc­tors, she said, could be the last line of de­fence in such cas­es, how­ev­er, as they would al­so be aware that the un­der­age chil­dren are preg­nant.

"I am just tired of peo­ple abus­ing chil­dren," Samp­son-Browne, al­so a for­mer mem­ber of the po­lice's com­mu­ni­ty unit, said."Chil­dren are go­ing in­to the hos­pi­tals and the health cen­tres and hav­ing chil­dren, and the doc­tors are not in­form­ing the po­lice, and this can­not con­tin­ue."They must be held ac­count­able. Let us start to hold some of these doc­tors and nurs­es who fail to re­port this to the po­lice and who turn a blind eye, and let some of them make a jail."

She said Gopeesingh's sta­tis­tics re­flect­ed the num­bers of statu­to­ry rape which had been re­port­ed, but this might not paint a true pic­ture of the prob­lem, as there might be many more preg­nan­cies which went un­de­tect­ed."What about the chil­dren who have been tak­en out from school and nev­er re­turn af­ter get­ting preg­nant? What about the ones who have gone to back­street abor­tion­ists?"What Dr Gopeesingh has done is he has opened a can of worms," Samp­son-Browne added.

Doc­tors' hands tied

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse yes­ter­day, Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan said be­cause of the con­cept of "doc­tor-pa­tient con­fi­den­tial­i­ty," doc­tors had no oblig­a­tion to alert the po­lice re­gard­ing teenage preg­nan­cies."This puts the doc­tors in a 'catch-22' sit­u­a­tion...be­tween a rock and a hard place, be­cause the doc­tors are ob­lig­at­ed to pro­tect their pa­tients," Khan told the T&T Guardian.

"To go against this is a breach of the pri­va­cy law and there­fore paves the way for the doc­tor and the med­ical in­sti­tu­tion for med­ical lit­i­ga­tion whether pri­vate or pub­lic."He ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that this posed a se­ri­ous prob­lem to catch­ing the per­pe­tra­tors of these acts, adding be­cause of the cur­rent prob­lem it was time to im­ple­ment new leg­is­la­tion."I am go­ing to con­sult the med­ical board to find out if the con­fi­den­tial­i­ty of a pa­tient in a med­ical set­ting needs to be ex­am­ined, be­cause the pri­va­cy law pro­tects the pa­tients," Khan said.

"In this re­gard we need to look at leg­is­la­tion and prop­er­ly de­cide what is best for both sides with­out there be­ing any reper­cus­sion, be­cause the is­sue of teenage preg­nan­cies is a big prob­lem and one that must be ad­dressed." He said what would al­so need fur­ther ex­am­i­na­tion was whether the preg­nan­cy was a re­sult of rape, in­dis­crim­i­nate sex or oth­er­wise. But deal­ing with the prob­lem prop­er­ly would al­so raise the oth­er sen­si­tive is­sue of abor­tion, the health min­is­ter added.

"There are signs and symp­toms of a preg­nan­cy. What are the rea­sons that the child would on­ly come to de­liv­er? Is it be­cause of shame as­so­ci­at­ed with preg­nan­cy."We al­so have to look at some dis­cus­sion on whether or not we have to look at laws and rea­sons which may be put for­ward for ter­mi­na­tion," Khan said.

Child pro­tec­tion task force

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith, who agreed Gopeesingh had in­deed opened a can of worms, said yes­ter­day that one ini­tia­tive be­ing ex­plored was the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a Child Pro­tec­tion Task Force with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice.

Say­ing the pro­pos­al still had to be dis­cussed with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams, Grif­fith said the task force was ex­pect­ed to com­prise spe­cial­ly trained po­lice of­fi­cers to deal with of­fences against chil­dren.

Asked why there was no prop­er en­force­ment of the law on statu­to­ry rape, Grif­fith di­rect­ed the ques­tion to Williams.Sev­er­al calls to Williams' cell­phone yes­ter­day went unan­swered.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on the mat­ter, as­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice in charge of an­ti-crime op­er­a­tions, Glenn Hack­ett, in­sist­ed the po­lice have been pros­e­cut­ing cas­es of statu­to­ry rape. He said the is­sue was one which need­ed a holis­tic ap­proach."This is a mat­ter not on­ly for the po­lice but for so­cial work­ers, par­ents, guardians, prin­ci­pals...every­one."If the po­lice find out a case through their knowl­edge they will ar­rest," Hack­ett said.He ad­mit­ted there was al­ways room for im­prove­ment.

TTUTA: In­ci­dents­be­ing re­port­ed

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Uni­fied Teacher's As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) Da­vanand Sinanan said yes­ter­day he was "very sat­is­fied" that teach­ers and prin­ci­pals were prop­er­ly look­ing af­ter the well-be­ing of chil­dren, in­clud­ing re­port­ing sex­u­al of­fences against them to the po­lice."By law we are re­quired to re­port to the po­lice any in­ci­dent of a teenag­er be­ing preg­nant, or of if we sus­pect an un­der aged child, whether male or fe­male, is sex­u­al­ly ac­tive," Sinanan said.

He said teach­ers and prin­ci­pals were al­so "well aware" of the stip­u­la­tion in the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act which states that fail­ure to re­port such an in­ci­dent would re­sult in a fine of $12,000 or six months in jail.