Akash Sama­roo

Se­cret trips to Ma­yaro with un­ap­proved adults, trans­ac­tions of mar­i­jua­na for sex, gang rape ini­ti­a­tions and for­mer res­i­dents liv­ing at the homes of staff mem­bers are some of the hor­rif­ic rev­e­la­tions made in­to the cul­ture of sex­u­al abuse at chil­dren’s homes in this coun­try.

In a re­port ti­tled “Safe­guard­ing Chil­dren in Com­mu­ni­ty Res­i­dences and Child Sup­port Cen­tres in Trinidad and To­ba­go” sev­er­al chil­dren’s homes were ex­posed for their prac­tices and com­plic­i­ty with re­spect to sex­u­al abuse at the fa­cil­i­ties.

None more damn­ing that the find­ings at The Mar­garet Kistow Chil­dren’s Home in Ari­ma.

The re­port has rec­om­mend­ed that the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty im­me­di­ate­ly sus­pend its op­er­a­tions.

The re­port states that “The man­ag­er in­di­cat­ed that he in­vites boys who age out to live with him. Three boys cur­rent­ly re­side with the man­ag­er. Ac­cord­ing to the man­ag­er, “noth­ing wrong with this, I do­ing this for years be­cause they have nowhere else to go.”

Up­on en­quiry, neigh­bours con­firmed to the In­ves­ti­ga­tion Team that they saw boys fre­quent­ing the home of the man­ag­er.”

The re­port went on to say, “state­ments from the man­ag­er in­di­cat­ed that res­i­dents of­ten leave the home to pur­chase mar­i­jua­na and re­turn to smoke it on the com­pound. This in­creas­es the prob­a­bil­i­ty of child abuse in the form of trans­ac­tion­al sex.”

The re­port said that the Mar­garet Kistow Chil­dren’s Home al­lowed its res­i­dents to go on trips with adults which were logged in a clan­des­tine man­ner.

“The home al­lows chil­dren to spend week­ends in Ma­yaro with in­di­vid­u­als who are not the chil­dren’s le­gal guardians/par­ents and the in­for­ma­tion is logged in a spe­cial book. This prac­tice con­tra­venes the Au­thor­i­ty’s pol­i­cy.”

The re­port al­so not­ed a lapse in con­duct­ing the nec­es­sary back­ground checks re­sult­ing in the em­ploy­ment of a per­son who has pri­or al­le­ga­tions of sex­u­al abuse.

In ad­di­tion to rec­om­mend­ing that the home’s op­er­a­tions be sus­pend­ed pend­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty, the re­port said that the prac­tice of send­ing out chil­dren should be im­me­di­ate­ly stopped and that the Au­thor­i­ty must be no­ti­fied when a res­i­dent is tran­si­tion­ing from the Home to a staff’s pri­vate home.

Guardian Me­dia called the Mar­garet Kistow Chil­dren’s Home for a com­ment but an au­to­mat­ed voice­mail mes­sage said their hours of op­er­a­tion on Sun­day ends at 2 pm. We called at 1.30 pm.

The re­port said the home is un­li­censed and as of Ju­ly 2021 had 40 res­i­dents (17 boys, 21 girls, 2 young men) in a fa­cil­i­ty with a pop­u­la­tion ca­pac­i­ty of 35.

The St Jude’s Home for Girls was al­so ex­posed in the re­port, where gang rape and sex­u­al groom­ing by se­cu­ri­ty guards were said to be some of the prob­lems found.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, “Fre­quent sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty oc­curs among res­i­dents in­clud­ing sit­u­a­tions that res­i­dents de­scribed as “gang rape.”

The al­le­ga­tion of gang rape was found to be part of the “haz­ing process.” Sex­u­al in­ter­ac­tion and groom­ing were found to have oc­curred be­tween res­i­dents and staff and se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel.

The re­port went on to say that se­cu­ri­ty guards have been found com­plic­it in sup­ply­ing psy­chotrop­ic sub­stances and oth­er un­reg­u­lat­ed drugs to res­i­dents.

“The sit­u­a­tion in­creas­es the chil­dren’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty re­gard­ing sex­u­al abuse. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the prac­tice con­tra­venes the Dan­ger­ous Drugs Act, Sec­tion 7.”

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion al­so found that in one case a se­cu­ri­ty guard al­lowed a girl to es­cape the premis­es in or­der to have pos­si­ble sex­u­al re­la­tions with an adult.

The re­port named a fam­i­ly whose sex­u­al in­volve­ment with res­i­dents was de­scribed as “ha­bit­u­al.”

The re­port found that there is a “pat­tern of gross neg­li­gence on the part of Man­age­ment in the use of Se­cu­ri­ty Guards for the su­per­vi­sion of girls.” The in­ves­tiga­tive com­mit­tee rec­om­mend­ed that Man­age­ment be held ac­count­able for fail­ing to safe­guard the girls.

On April 8, three girls ran away from this fa­cil­i­ty.

St Jude’s Home for Girls is al­so not li­censed ac­cord­ing to the re­port with a pop­u­la­tion of 56 girls as of Ju­ly 2021.

The Do­minic’s Chil­dren’s Home was re­port­ed as a fa­cil­i­ty that fails to in­dem­ni­fy and pro­tect res­i­dents from groom­ing and thus sex­u­al abuse.

At the St Mary’s Chil­dren’s Home it was found that in­ci­dent re­ports are not ful­ly cap­tur­ing the ex­tent of sex­u­al abuse and at the Casa de Cora­zon Chil­dren’s Home it was re­vealed that man­age­ment iden­ti­fied a fe­male staff mem­ber who was found to be hav­ing in­ap­pro­pri­ate in­ter­ac­tions with a res­i­dent at “odd hours.”

The re­port scolds the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty for not do­ing its job in mon­i­tor­ing what goes on at these fa­cil­i­ties. The in­ves­tiga­tive com­mit­tee not­ed that the chil­dren who come in­to the State’s care usu­al­ly are sur­vivors of trau­ma and abuse at home.

“The fact that this type of abuse al­so oc­curs in the State sys­tem is in­ex­cus­able in the face of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the State to pro­vide a safe and se­cure en­vi­ron­ment.”

The 139-page re­port was re­leased by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter af­ter be­ing laid in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day by Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy.

This was the re­sult of a Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed in­de­pen­dent in­ves­tiga­tive team tasked with prob­ing re­ports of child abuse at chil­dren’s homes.

Min­is­ter Web­ster-Roy an­nounced that $126 mil­lion will be al­lo­cat­ed to a task force with a six-week dead­line to come up with an ac­tion plan for the rec­om­men­da­tions com­ing out of the re­port.

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