Chester Sam­bra­no

News­gath­er­ing Ed­i­tor

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

For the past five days, the coun­try has been gripped by and con­sumed with the in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the death of 18-year-old Han­nah Mathu­ra.

On Tues­day, Mathu­ra’s skele­tal re­mains were found in the shal­low grave on Bu­tu Street, Val­sayn prop­er­ty where she and her fam­i­ly lived.

But the shock, hor­ror and con­cerns have moved from off the pave­ment in­to the cor­ri­dors of Par­lia­ment.

“This en­tire sit­u­a­tion has shocked Trinidad and To­ba­go in terms of where we have reached as a coun­try,” Barataria/San Juan MP Sad­dam Ho­sein said as he made his way in­to the Red House for yes­ter­day’s sit­ting of Par­lia­ment.

The con­sen­sus among the par­lia­men­tar­i­ans was that aris­ing out of the tragedy, it is clear more needs to be done to pro­tect the na­tion’s chil­dren.

“This would have been a child who went miss­ing and no­body knew, of course, some­where along the sys­tem we would have failed her,” said Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne.

La Brea MP and Labour Min­is­ter Stephen Mc Clashie point­ed out, “I think there may have been enough ev­i­dence up front for some­body to do some­thing.”

San Fer­nan­do East MP and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Bri­an Man­ning said adults need to be more re­spon­si­ble and aware.

“We all have to be­come a lot more vig­i­lant in what we do and a lot more care­ful in how we pro­tect and treat our young peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

This was all but echoed by Health Min­is­ter and St Joseph MP Ter­rence Deyals­ingh.

“I think all of us need to recog­nise that chil­dren are to be cher­ished, they are our fu­ture and let’s all act re­spon­si­bly,” he said.

But, amid the con­cerns come a call for the po­lice and child pro­tec­tion agen­cies to be put un­der scruti­ny, as there were re­ports that neigh­bours con­tact­ed them about what they saw and heard tak­ing place at Han­nah’s home pri­or to her death.

Princes Town MP Bar­ry Padarath said the claims need to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

“It can­not be that the most vul­ner­a­ble in our so­ci­ety, which is our na­tion’s chil­dren, con­tin­ue to be at the detri­ment of crim­i­nals and those who are charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect them, that pro­tec­tion doesn’t seem to be forth­com­ing, so that is re­al­ly deeply trou­bling and wor­ri­some,” he said.

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds main­tained there are laws passed and agen­cies es­tab­lished to pro­tect chil­dren who have been work­ing.

“But there is an el­e­ment that the law and the state can­not im­me­di­ate­ly reg­u­late, that is to say the re­la­tion­ship be­tween each of us with­in fam­i­lies.”

In re­spond­ing to claims the au­thor­i­ties did not re­spond to calls on the re­ports at the Mathu­ra home, Hinds said peo­ple will al­ways talk but notwith­stand­ing this, more has to be done to pro­tect chil­dren in this coun­try.

For Hinds, the Mathu­ra sto­ry was an un­for­tu­nate state of af­fairs that had brought sad­ness and trau­ma to the peo­ple of this coun­try.

Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly mean­while called for the na­tion to use the tragedy to move for­ward to­geth­er.

“I want to ap­peal to all cit­i­zens, whether it be Prime Min­is­ter, whether it be Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, whether it be MPs, whether it be pub­lic ser­vant, cit­i­zens as a whole, re­li­gious lead­ers, I want to ap­peal to every­one, we need to unite on this par­tic­u­lar is­sue once and for all so that we can ar­rest this crime scourge. I am call­ing on all lead­ers, we need to get to­geth­er to deal with this in the in­ter­est of our chil­dren,” he said.

On Wednes­day, Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty CEO Shel­don Cyrus said there was an on­go­ing cri­sis where the pro­tec­tion of chil­dren was con­cerned. He said the au­thor­i­ty has had to in­ter­vene in sev­er­al hor­rif­ic sit­u­a­tions in which chil­dren ex­ist.