Senior Reporter
akash.samaroo@cnc3.co.tt
An official of the St Mary’s Children’s Home says the state is failing to either ascertain or report children’s sexual abuse history on their arrival at the facility and that is affecting the home’s ability to care for them and protect others at the home.
In her presentation at the Caribbean Genders and Sexualities Research Symposium, the manager of the home, Gwenyth Bleasdell, said an internal study was conducted to identify the issues of sexuality affecting young males in child residential care.
Seven institutionalised boys were interviewed and Bleasdell said it unearthed a troubling problem.
“One of the concerns is the number of young males that come in, show signs of being sexually violated but they’re not coming into the home with reports of sexual violation,” she revealed.
Bleasdell said only through therapy and conversations was the fact revealed.
“The reality is that when children come into residential care, a lot of times because of the way they are taken from their homes, there is not enough room for the Authority to get the information that they need concerning the ways in which the child was violated and the trauma that they have,” she said.
She added that society and the country’s culture did not help with how the system viewed and treated children and their sexuality and the boys were afraid to express their sexual issues particularly due to the stigma associated with homosexuality.
“Because it is taboo in nature, it’s not being addressed by the system and so, we are not properly handling the needs of our children who are going through abuse. And so essentially because they are dealing with challenges with nymphomania and challenges with an inability to control sexual drive at young ages, they are attacking persons because they have access to them, so it does not matter if they are male or female,” she explained.
Staff at children’s homes were described as a contributing factor. The manager said there may be underreporting of incidents of peer-to-peer abuse, something highlighted in the 2021 Judith Jones investigation.
Bleasdell believes it is time to crucially examine the quality and competence of the staff at children’s homes.
“Training among staff is greatly needed. But there is a need in the residential care sector for us to reconsider who we have as caregivers, their level of training, their level of experience not just in childcare but also in other fields that work with childcare to help us provide the necessary environment that’s needed to allow a child to be healed,” she explained.
Also speaking at the event was Renee Joseph, the legal services manager of the Children’s Authority of T&T (CATT), an entity which has oversight on the wellbeing of children in this country, inclusive of those in residential care.
However, Joseph’s presentation dealt with explaining the Domestic Violence Act and recent changes made to it. There was no response to the claims made by the St Mary’s Home manager.
Guardian Media sought a response to Bleasdell’s revelations from Minister Ayanna Webster-Roy who has responsibility for Child and Gender Affairs. Webster-Roy said she was not aware of the issue but explained that the CATT would be the body to respond as she does not have direct access to case files.
Questions were sent yesterday afternoon to the CATT. However, no response came before press time.
The symposium was held on Friday at the Cipriani College of Labour and Co-Operative Studies.