Months after his first birthday, Clevon Oliver’s mother placed him at the Jaya Lakshmi Children’s Home in Chaguanas.
He lived there until he was adopted by his grandmother at ten years old.
Unfortunately, Oliver said his memories of being at the home were heavy with experiences of sexual and physical assault.
“They (residents of the home) were allowed to be molested and to be hit and hurt by the older children,” he claimed yesterday.
Oliver’s revelation came on the heels of the 307-page Judith Jones report into Children’s Homes in April and Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley’s call for the acting Police Commissioner to investigate the 1997 Sabga Report of the same nature.
The Jaya Lakshmi Children’s Home was not in the report but the former resident said that does not mean abuse did not happen.
Oliver said the main form of abuse was neglect and because of this, the older boys were able to take advantage of him and his friends.
“I was molested from going in, to coming out...it wasn’t a secret, they just turned their eyes. For example, if the auntie is cooking, she does not want to stretch her attention to supervise us properly. These things would happen in bathroom or outside the orphanage,” Oliver said emotionally.
He said if he spoke about it or repeated it, the reward from the aunties (caretakers) was physical punishment.
But the abuse wasn’t only sexual, as he remembered being injured by an older resident after he stuck a cocoyea broom stick in his ear.
Oliver, who spoke with Guardian Media at the Eddie Hart Grounds in Tacarigua, said he was asleep at the time but when he woke up the auntie bleeding and crying, he was told to go back to sleep.
“I can’t do anything about that now, it’s night!” he said she told him.
The man, now in his 20s, said that was the first time he felt like running away, something he did twice. However, when the police recaptured him, he claimed the home heads scolded him and did not ask why.
“You’re ungrateful,” Oliver said they told him.
For these actions and just playing too much, the former resident said he and others had to spend the entire day in a small room without access to water, food, or a bathroom.
“You were locked in a three by a ten-foot corridor... anybody we could cajole into coming up and helping us, would bring a bottle of water, one of those two-litre bottles that all of us had to share amongst ourselves and after using that bottle, we had to pee in that same bottle,” he said.
“I couldn’t really comprehend that it was abuse but now as an adult, that’s a horrible thing to put a child through, terrible!” he added.
Oliver said he was allowed to go to school but even that experience was ruined by punishment.
“Walking home, we picked pepper from my neighbour’s tree, we wanted to make some mango chow...upon reaching home, we were forced to eat the peppers right there in the office. The burning, I can distinctly remember the burning sensation on my face, on my hands, crying bitterly, I couldn’t help myself,” he said.
Oliver said he asked for water but the aunties told him no.
He said because of his mixed ethnicity, his nickname, which he did not know was derogatory at the time, was ‘N*gger-ivali.
He said he is willing to make a report to the police and get others to do so as well but questioned the effectiveness.
Both acting Police Commissioner McDonald Jacob and head of the Gender-Based Violence Unit Clair Guy-Alleyne have been encouraging former residents to come forward to make reports of instances of abuse at homes.
“I will take pride in it... being asked to come out and speak about my experiences, it is not a chance orphans usually get,” he said.
Guardian Media reached out to the Jaya Lakshmi Children’s Home in Chaguanas yesterday. Manager Rawtie Sonylal said she was shocked to hear about Oliver’s allegations.
She said since acting in the role, she had put an end to corporal punishment but was unaware of instances of sexual abuse.
Oliver said there should be more training and education involved, a selection process over who takes care of children and some sort of punishment for parents who abandon their children.
The former resident said despite the lack of love at the home, he was able to finish school, start university, start a family and his own gardening business.