The Op­po­si­tion has promised to en­sure jus­tice is served for a Form Four St Stephen’s Col­lege stu­dent who end­ed his life af­ter al­leged­ly be­ing bul­lied for some time.  

In a Face­book post this week­end, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there were re­ports that the 15-year-old Jay­den Lalchan suf­fered tremen­dous­ly over an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od from abuse and bul­ly­ing.

“If these al­le­ga­tions are proven to be true, jus­tice must be served on all who ter­rorised this beau­ti­ful child and all who turned a blind eye to his suf­fer­ing.

“I will en­sure that a heavy price will be paid by all those in­volved in tor­ment­ing and ter­ror­is­ing this child in­to tak­ing his own life. May he fi­nal­ly find peace in the arms of God,” the for­mer prime min­is­ter said.

Dur­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ week­ly press brief­ing, yes­ter­day morn­ing, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ch­agua­nas East Van­dana Mo­hit sup­port­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s call for jus­tice.

She said that her col­league Bar­ry Padarath vis­it­ed the vic­tim’s fam­i­ly on Sat­ur­day.

“We say enough is enough, and it is time for the Gov­ern­ment to act and step up…We con­tin­ue to call on the Gov­ern­ment to ex­pand be­yond a hot­line and deal with the is­sues of school bul­ly­ing and sui­cides in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Get these pro­grammes in­to the schools, so that chil­dren can speak out, speak to some­one and seek the as­sis­tance that they need,” she said.

Mo­hit al­so claimed Gov­ern­ment was fail­ing to man­age chil­dren’s homes across the coun­try. There are on­go­ing and deeply trou­bling fail­ures in the homes, she claimed.

In re­sponse, Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster Roy said she was deeply sad­dened by the news of the young boy’s death, say­ing that her heart goes out to his fam­i­ly.

“As a par­ent, my­self, I can on­ly imag­ine the im­mense pain and sor­row they must be ex­pe­ri­enc­ing.

“On 13th May, I had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to share with Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment a valu­able re­source de­vel­oped by the GORTT in part­ner­ship with UNICEF to ad­dress men­tal health chal­lenges in chil­dren and young peo­ple. This in­for­ma­tion had al­ready reached schools, homes, and pub­lic plat­forms be­fore I pre­sent­ed it to my col­leagues,” Min­is­ter Web­ster-Roy said.

She pro­vid­ed a list of youth men­tal health pro­grammes and re­sources avail­able. They in­clud­ed young­caribbean­minds.com, which fea­tures a di­rec­to­ry of men­tal health ser­vices in T&T; Com­mu­ni­ty Car­a­van, which aims to in­crease aware­ness of child abuse and pre­ven­tion ef­forts; the Child Rights Am­bas­sadors Pro­gramme, which in­tends to em­pow­er youths aged 12 to 18.;  as well as the launch of Youth Men­tal Health Re­sources and Ac­tive Talk, a UNICEF-fund­ed ini­tia­tive.

Ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ments, more than $42.4 mil­lion was dis­bursed to St Jude’s, St Mary’s and St Do­minic’s Chil­dren Homes to care for 157 chil­dren.

‘Strong must pro­tect the weak’

Mean­while, Kevin Rati­ram, the Pres­i­dent of Rapid­fire Kidz Foun­da­tion—a non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion ded­i­cat­ed to as­sist­ing chil­dren said he doesn’t be­lieve there’s one spe­cif­ic so­lu­tion for bul­ly­ing in schools.

He said each case needs to be analysed, with spe­cif­ic in­ter­ven­tions iden­ti­fied.

“I know that the MoE has a Na­tion­al School Dis­ci­pline Ma­trix Pol­i­cy, which man­dates school prin­ci­pals to re­fer bul­ly­ing cas­es to the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion (which has var­i­ous child ex­perts) and to have a con­fer­ence with the par­ent/guardian. It al­so al­lows schools to sus­pend the of­fend­er.

“I can’t say if this has been ef­fec­tive or not. I doubt that we can ever to­tal­ly erad­i­cate school bul­ly­ing. But our aim must be to min­imise it as much as pos­si­ble. I think a sci­en­tif­ic ap­proach is need­ed,” the child ad­vo­cate and at­tor­ney said.

He added that par­ents and the com­mu­ni­ty al­so have roles to play. Rati­ram said chil­dren must be taught from young that it’s not okay to bul­ly oth­ers.

“As a so­ci­ety, we must teach our chil­dren that the strong are sup­posed to pro­tect the weak, not take ad­van­tage of them,” Rati­ram said.

Dur­ing a peace walk last week, Pres­i­dent of the Par­ent-Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion at St Stephen’s Col­lege Anand De­onar­ine said bul­ly­ing was af­fect­ing schools through­out T&T.

He said then, “As head of the PTA, I must stand with par­ents and ad­dress bul­ly­ing at St Stephen’s Col­lege.

“We are call­ing on the ad­min­is­tra­tion to take a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to bul­ly­ing in our school. Re­gard­less of what hap­pens, if one child is bul­lied, that one child is im­por­tant.”

If you or any­one you know has been bat­tling thoughts of self-harm please con­tact Life­line at 800-5588; Child­line 800-4321 or the 24-Hour Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Hot­line 800– COPE (2673).