Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Don­na Cox and act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob have again re­it­er­at­ed that gang lead­ers and the crim­i­nal el­e­ments are fill­ing the voids left by par­ents in chil­dren’s lives.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day’s launch of the min­istry’s Na­tion­al Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Di­vi­sion’s Par­ent­ing Work­shop at the Mt Lam­bert Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Cox said some fam­i­lies are suf­fer­ing from a “par­ent­ing cri­sis.”

“When we look at what is hap­pen­ing with­in fam­i­lies across Trinidad and To­ba­go, there is cause for con­cern,” Cox said.

“There are re­ports of some par­ents who phys­i­cal­ly and sex­u­al­ly abuse their chil­dren. Some aban­don and ne­glect them, leav­ing them to take care of them­selves. We have heard of in­stances where par­ents no longer pro­vide the ba­sic needs of food, shel­ter and cloth­ing for their chil­dren, in­stead, gang lead­ers are step­ping in­to these parental roles.”

She added, “Some girls are forced in­to re­la­tion­ships with per­sons who are old­er be­cause their par­ents no longer pro­vide for them. Boys are re­cruit­ed by gang lead­ers who give them food and meet their oth­er ba­sic needs on a dai­ly ba­sis. They are then man­dat­ed to com­mit crimes as a form of re­pay­ment.”

How­ev­er, Cox ad­mit­ted that some par­ents fail to ad­e­quate­ly sup­port their chil­dren for more rea­sons than be­ing able to af­ford it.

“Mind you, this is not just about pover­ty, which some par­ents use as an ex­cuse for their delin­quent be­hav­iour. It is not al­ways be­cause par­ents can­not af­ford to take care of their chil­dren. Some­times it is be­cause of their mixed-up pri­or­i­ties,” Cox said.

Un­der­scor­ing the need for bet­ter par­ent­ing mean­while, Ja­cobs said par­ents need to pro­vide emo­tion­al sup­port to their chil­dren.

“This prin­ci­ple of bond­ing is the same prin­ci­ple that is used by the re­cruiters for per­sons who wish for young per­sons to join gangs and the gang lead­ers. Be­cause when your child don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly have prop­er be­liefs, pos­i­tive in­volve­ment and no bond­ing is tak­ing place, the gang leader pro­vides that av­enue for the young peo­ple. There­fore, it is to­tal­ly nec­es­sary as par­ents to en­sure that at­tach­ment and com­mit­ment and bond­ing ex­ists with­in our home,” Ja­cob said.

Cox urged par­ents “to look at the SPICES—Spir­i­tu­al, Phys­i­cal, In­tel­lec­tu­al, Cre­ative, Emo­tion­al and So­cial—needs of their chil­dren.”

Dur­ing the launch of its pro­gramme yes­ter­day, the min­istry said it will fea­ture four vir­tu­al ses­sions along with three com­mu­ni­ty work­shops. It will cov­er top­ics such as par­ent­ing for men, co-par­ent­ing, par­ent­ing and fam­i­ly vi­o­lence and par­ents in the know. It in­tends to pro­vide ways for par­tic­i­pants to bet­ter un­der­stand the chal­lenges of par­ent­ing and em­pow­er them with knowl­edge and par­ent­ing ed­u­ca­tion.

Ja­cob laud­ed the ini­tia­tive as a vi­able way to com­bat crim­i­nal­i­ty in the short, medi­um and long term.

The act­ing CoP said gun vi­o­lence had claimed the lives of 210 young men be­tween ages 16 and 34 in 2021 and 115 so far in 2022. He said 45 men in this age group were charged with mur­der be­tween last year and this year, while some 600 young men be­tween these ages were charged for firearm-re­lat­ed of­fences for the year to date. That num­ber, Ja­cob said, was 986 for last year.