One former ward of the state says news that members of the T&T Police Service have searched two children’s homes this week alone gives him a sense of hope.
“That is a wonderful feeling to tell you the truth, because anything that can stop these things from happening is a plus so to me, I feel really good,” the former ward of the state, who asked to remain anonymous, said yesterday.
On Tuesday, police visited the St Dominic’s Children’s Home in Belmont and on Wednesday they again went against to St Dominic’s and then to the St Mary’s Children’s Home in Tacarigua.
The moves came as the TTPS continued its investigation into allegations of physical and sexual abuse raised in the Robert Sabga report of 1997.
The former St Mary’s resident, who spent more than a decade there, said he hoped the investigation would bring justice for the many who suffered like him.
“It seems as though people damage we life and nobody was held accountable,” he said.
The former resident was placed in the home at the age of four and was put out for smoking marijuana when he was 15. He said because of this, he never finished his education, which now affects his adult life.
“You see losing my education, that really hurtful, everything gone down the drain and I still trying to deal with that,” he said.
He claimed he resorted to drugs to deal with being physically and sexually assaulted while at the home.
During Failing our Future, a half-hour special on abuse at children’s homes that aired on CNC3 in May, the former ward of the state shared the abuse he faced while at the home.
He said at the age of five or six, a bigger girl with the responsibility of taking care of him used to touch him inappropriately. Older boys also did the same. He claimed there was also a lot of physical abuse, as night supervisors beat the residents with PVC pipes and belts.
“It had a time inside the home, every time you come home from school, every time is 3 o’clock and school over and you reach inside the home, they sending you to bathe. As you done bathe, they putting you in something like a big cage which does remind me of a prison, where you sitting down and you watching outside. You seeing the savannah in the back and thing and your heart desire is just to run in that savannah. When they do let we go from in there, is like animals when they let go,” he said back in May.
Yesterday, he commended the witnesses who went to the police for their bravery, noting this has given him the encouragement to speak out as well.
“I would applaud them and I want them to know not to blame themselves…and by coming forward, you will start the healing process…You know it have a chance the person going to face justice for what they do,” he said.
He said he was relieved that police are finally looking into the abuse, even if it’s more than 20 years later but said he always knew he and his colleagues would get justice.
“Whether the police hold them or not, it have a God above,” he said.
Meanwhile, head of the TTPS’ Child Protection Unit, Claire Guy-Alleyne, yesterday called on other witnesses from other homes to come forward. She said so far, only victims from the St Dominic’s and St Mary’s Children’s Homes had come to the police and investigations were only conducted from the 1997 Sabga Report.
The 1997 Robert Sabga report looked into the operations of 10 children’s homes. It’s a 70-page document, titled Report of The Cabinet Appointed Task Force to Review the Operations of Children’s Homes and Institutions in Trinidad and Tobago.
Retired Justice Judith Jones also led a team that probed children’s homes and produced a report last year but no one has yet come forward to speak to the police on these allegations, Guy-Alleyne said.
The 307-page Jones report, titled Safeguarding Children in Community Residences and Child Support Centres in Trinidad and Tobago, also found instances of child abuse at children’s homes.
Guy-Alleyne said they are working close with the Director of Public Prosecutions as their investigations continue.
