RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

One of the pa­trons of a women’s shel­ter in South Trinidad has come out in de­fence of the fa­cil­i­ty, say­ing the al­le­ga­tions of abuse by a ma­tron made by a for­mer oc­cu­pant are false.

In a let­ter is­sued to Guardian Me­dia, the pa­tron said the young moth­er in­ter­viewed by Guardian Me­dia ar­rived at the home preg­nant and was treat­ed with love and re­spect.

“As a bene­fac­tor of the home and a per­son who al­ways vis­its the home, I can tes­ti­fy that at no time were any of the girls or their ba­bies not fed or lacked any­thing.

“As a mat­ter of fact, on this girl’s case the home looked af­ter her dur­ing her preg­nan­cy, took her to all the doc­tor fol­low-ups,” the woman said.

The girl has al­leged that a ma­tron at the home abused her and her ba­by and re­fused to give her milk for the child for two days, forc­ing her to feed the child lime bud tea. The mater is now be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Port-of-Spain Arch­dio­cese.

Say­ing the girl did not have the sup­port of her fam­i­ly nor the fa­ther of her child, how­ev­er, the bene­fac­tor said, “No one was around at the time of the birth of her ba­by. I per­son­al­ly vis­it­ed her at the hos­pi­tal and gave her new clothes for her ba­by. At the time I felt very sad for her to see all the oth­er moth­ers at the hos­pi­tal had vis­i­tors and this child didn’t have any­one to con­grat­u­late her.”

She con­firmed that an aunt had sent some mon­ey for the girl but al­leged it was not used for its in­tend­ed pur­pose.

“She nev­er bought any milk for the ba­by. If the child was go­ing through star­va­tion that should have been her pri­or­i­ty. Many times she was very dis­re­spect­ful and rude,” the woman said, adding it was by choice that the girl fed her ba­by lime bud tea.

The pa­tron said she be­lieved the girl could not stay at her fam­i­ly’s home be­cause of her be­hav­iour. She said giv­ing air­play to some­one who was telling un­truths was un­fair to the home.

“This would not help her to cor­rect her ways and be­come a good moth­er and a ma­ture and re­spect­ful young la­dy, this is a very dis­gust­ing act by a mi­nor who has got­ten so much help,” she said.

She al­so said she was dis­ap­point­ed that the me­dia did not con­tact the home. How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia did con­tact the home pri­or to pub­li­ca­tion and even sent an email to the man­ag­er re­quest­ing an in­ter­view. This email was nev­er an­swered.

Fa­ther Robert Chris­to, Vic­ar of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion of the Port-of-Spain Arch­dio­cese, which is in charge of the home, re­spond­ed to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions on be­half of the home and ad­vised that the mat­ter was be­ing tak­en se­ri­ous­ly and be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

In­ter­views were al­so done with a for­mer work­er and oth­er peo­ple as­so­ci­at­ed with the home, who cor­rob­o­rat­ed the girl’s claims of al­leged vic­tim­i­sa­tion and abuse.

The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty has start­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion and is ex­pect­ed to make a com­ment to­day.