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Thursday, February 27, 2025

Cabinet to approve children's homes action plan next week

by

Akash Samaroo
904 days ago
20220907

The ac­tion plan to im­prove care and con­di­tions at the na­tion’s chil­dren’s homes is ex­pect­ed to re­ceive Cab­i­net ap­proval next week.

“I hope we will re­solve all is­sues by next Thurs­day,” Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter as­signed to Gen­der Af­fairs, Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

The Min­is­ter con­firmed that the rec­om­men­da­tions are still be­fore Cab­i­net’s Fi­nance and Gen­er­al Pur­pose (F&GP) Com­mit­tee.

The plan has been at the F&GP stage since Ju­ly, af­ter the rec­om­men­da­tions on the way for­ward were sub­mit­ted by a Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed task force on June 17, 2022.

The work of the task force be­gan on May 5 and its man­date was to sub­mit a plan to fa­cil­i­tate the im­ple­men­ta­tion of rec­om­men­da­tions fol­low­ing the Jus­tice Ju­dith Jones re­port in­to chil­dren’s homes ti­tled “Safe­guard­ing Chil­dren in Com­mu­ni­ty Res­i­dences and Child Sup­port Cen­tres in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Min­is­ter Web­ster-Roy ex­plained why the Cab­i­net was tak­ing its time with this mat­ter.

“F&GP is a Cab­i­net com­mit­tee that gives fur­ther scruti­ny to Notes so that a rec­om­men­da­tion can be made to the Cab­i­net. I am sure you will agree that the na­ture of the Note and the im­pli­ca­tions of the pol­i­cy di­rec­tives would war­rant close scruti­ny. You know the say­ing; mea­sure twice, cut once.”

Guardian Me­dia was re­li­ably in­formed that a ma­jor sub­mis­sion by the Task Force is the es­tab­lish­ment of an Of­fice of the Chil­dren’s Com­mis­sion­er. This was rec­om­mend­ed sev­er­al times by the Ju­dith Jones com­mit­tee, which be­lieves that the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of T&T needs an over­sight body.

Web­ster-Roy had pre­vi­ous­ly in­di­cat­ed that the plan would be op­er­a­tionalised im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing Cab­i­net ap­proval.

Mean­while, head of the Spe­cial Vic­tims De­part­ment of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), Claire Guy-Al­leyne, told Guardian Me­dia that no one has yet come for­ward to make a re­port based on the crimes high­light­ed in the 2021 Jus­tice Jones re­port.

Asked if the rea­son no­body is yet to come to the po­lice to re­port crimes against them in the 2021 re­port is be­cause they are still wards of the State and in many cas­es, mi­nors, Guy-Al­leyne said, “We are look­ing in­to that re­port as well. So, we will see.”

How­ev­er, on Sep­tem­ber 2, a 51-year-old man was charged in con­nec­tion with al­le­ga­tions of sex­u­al­ly abus­ing more than 30 boys at the St Do­minic’s Chil­dren’s Home al­most 25 years ago. His al­leged crimes were de­tailed in a 1997 re­port pre­pared by a Robert Sab­ga-led task force which al­so re­viewed the op­er­a­tions of chil­dren’s homes and in­sti­tu­tions in T&T.


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