The plight of an im­pov­er­ished Pa­lo Seco fam­i­ly came to the front burn­er late last year when Nio­ka Alexan­der, a 22-year-old moth­er was caught steal­ing ba­by milk from a su­per­mar­ket.

The su­per­mar­ket own­er did not press charges and cit­i­zens from all over the coun­try of­fered help to the poor fam­i­ly.

The so­cial con­di­tions that led to that moth­er shoplift­ing and oth­ers have not changed in 2020.

Mean­while, sta­tis­tics giv­en at a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee hear­ing last April showed that every month at least 62 teenage girls be­tween the ages of 13 to 19 are re­port­ed as preg­nant.

To as­sist young moth­ers, there are Ado­les­cent Moth­ers Cen­tres lo­cat­ed through­out T&T which of­fer a wide range of sup­port pro­grammes that are de­signed to as­sist teenage moth­ers in skills train­ing and nu­tri­tion in­for­ma­tion.

But de­spite some so­cial pro­grammes, the pil­fer­ing of ba­by milk and oth­er items in su­per­mar­kets con­tin­ues un­abat­ed.

Now, more su­per­mar­kets own­ers are forced to keep ba­by milk in glass cas­es un­der lock and key.

Si­mon Ham­led, su­per­vi­sor, Pay­less Su­per­mar­ket, St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, is not sur­prised that some su­per­mar­ket own­ers are putting ba­by milk in glass cas­es along with al­co­hol and oth­er "high-risk" items. He said be­cause of the bad state of the econ­o­my, "peo­ple are steal­ing any­thing now."

He told the Sun­day Guardian, "If some­one steals one tin of ba­by milk from a su­per­mar­ket that could be your prof­it and then you have to dip in­to your cost. I don’t give them wrong, those su­per­mar­kets that put ba­by milk in­to locked glass cas­es..."

He al­so not­ed that the price of ba­by milk has in­creased "dras­ti­cal­ly" over the last five years.

In 2015, the price of a tin of 567 grammes of En­famil was $100, to­day that same tin costs up to $200.

"Ba­by milk is ex­pen­sive. The price of a box of ba­by milk is al­most the price of a bot­tle of whiskey. We used to buy 50 cas­es of milk of all brands a month, now we pur­chase 25 cas­es as less peo­ple are buy­ing milk or buy­ing it in small­er quan­ti­ties. Some peo­ple have even stopped buy­ing some brands of ba­by milk be­cause of the price range."

Ra­jiv Diptee, pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SATT), speak­ing about the pil­fer­ing of items like ba­by milk in su­per­mar­kets, said that ba­by milk was one of the most pop­u­lar items stolen in su­per­mar­kets and so su­per­mar­ket own­ers must pro­tect them­selves by plac­ing items such as this in locked ar­eas.

"Ba­by milk, cof­fee, cig­a­rettes, al­co­hol are the items usu­al­ly placed un­der lock and key in su­per­mar­kets. These are high val­ue and very ex­pen­sive items. The pil­fer­age of these items is usu­al­ly very high. But this is not new, these have been high-risk items for many years."

He said "pro­fes­sion­al shoplifters" have been steal­ing items like ba­by milk to sell.

Dur­ing Christ­mas and in Jan­u­ary, there was a group of pro­fes­sion­al shoplifters who were caught on se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras in sev­er­al of SATT mem­ber stores in Rio Claro, Ma­yaro, and Ch­agua­nas. They were cir­cu­lat­ed among su­per­mar­ket own­ers to alert them, Diptee said.

Al­though he did not give sta­tis­tics, he said pil­fer­ing in T&T’s su­per­mar­kets was at an all-time high.

Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj, CEO, ADM Im­port and Ex­port in Ari­ma and a for­mer pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion said since the crime sit­u­a­tion in T&T has reached cri­sis pro­por­tions, items like ba­by milk and al­co­hol are usu­al­ly kept locked up as they are re­gard­ed as high-risk prod­ucts most like­ly to be stolen.

"Su­per­mar­ket own­ers have to use cam­eras and armed guards to pro­tect them­selves and their goods," Ma­haraj added.

Mean­while, deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC Khadi­jah Ameen took to Face­book two weeks ago and wrote: "Ba­by milk un­der lock and key in the gro­cery but we proud of build­ings…"

Ameen, com­ment­ing on the trend, said she be­lieves that the so­cial sit­u­a­tion was de­te­ri­o­rat­ing in T&T which is lead­ing to low­er-in­come moth­ers and oth­er groups be­ing forced to shoplift and get in­volved in oth­er crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

"The fact that su­per­mar­kets see the need to place ba­by milk un­der lock and key is a re­sult of shoplift­ing of these items. It is an in­di­ca­tion that the par­ents of these in­fants are so des­per­ate to feed their ba­bies and can­not af­ford it that they are will­ing to risk go­ing to jail. The su­per­mar­kets are, how­ev­er, not to blame," she said in a What­sApp mes­sage to the Sun­day Guardian.

Ameen said if the present sit­u­a­tion of job loss­es, un­em­ploy­ment and un­der­em­ploy­ment along­side ris­ing food prices con­tin­ue, pil­fer­ing of ba­by milk and oth­er items in su­per­mar­kets and else­where will on­ly get worse.

"The in­creased fu­el prices have led to an in­crease in food prices as well as trans­porta­tion and cost of liv­ing in gen­er­al. VAT has been added to over 7,000 food items that were pre­vi­ous­ly ze­ro-rat­ed and the Ba­by Grants in­tro­duced by the KPB-led gov­ern­ment has been cal­lous­ly thrown out the win­dow," Ameen added.

In 2014, the for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion al­lo­cat­ed $120 mil­lion to a Ba­by Care Grant to as­sist house­holds earn­ing less than $3,000 to buy ba­by care sup­plies.