SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

On the eve of the re­open­ing of schools, the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs (AGLA) is be­ing asked to pay for coun­selling of an eight-year-old boy who re­turned from for­mer ISIS-con­trolled Syr­ia so he can in­te­grate in­to the pri­ma­ry school sys­tem.

In the best in­ter­est of the trau­ma­tised boy, it was al­so sug­gest­ed that he be placed in a pri­vate ed­u­ca­tion fa­cil­i­ty, equipped with spe­cif­ic fac­ul­ties and sup­port sys­tems.

This was con­tained in a let­ter dat­ed Au­gust 21, 2023, sent by at­tor­ney Criston J Williams to at­tor­ney Fazana Ali at the Chief State So­lic­i­tor’s De­part­ment which falls un­der the purview of the AGLA.

Williams in the five-page let­ter rep­re­sent­ed client Tanya Pe­ters, whose son Ja­son (not his re­al name), was born in Syr­ia and be­came state­less in T&T af­ter he was de­nied cit­i­zen­ship for six years by the T&T Gov­ern­ment.

As a re­sult, Ja­son was un­able to ac­cess sub­sidised Gov­ern­ment ser­vices in­clu­sive of be­ing en­rolled in the pri­ma­ry ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

This led to Ja­son’s best in­ter­est, wel­fare and de­vel­op­ment be­ing con­tra­vened and hin­dered.

Pe­ters and her young daugh­ter found them­selves in the con­flict zone in 2015 af­ter be­ing mis­led by Ja­son’s fa­ther who claimed he was go­ing to Turkey to play pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball but was killed by an over­head drone.

Dur­ing the two years she lived in Syr­ia, Pe­ters gave birth to Ja­son.

She was repa­tri­at­ed with her two chil­dren in 2017.

Up­on their ar­rival home, Ja­son was de­nied a birth cer­tifi­cate which Williams chal­lenged in court.

Lack of doc­u­men­ta­tion de­nied Ja­son place­ment in a school and ac­cess to health care ser­vices.

Pe­ters, a T&T na­tion­al, had to home-school her son in their Mal­oney apart­ment.

Last June, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty grant­ed Ja­son his T&T cit­i­zen­ship.

Williams ex­plained to Ali in the let­ter that with the new school term ex­pect­ed to be­gin short­ly, Ja­son must en­roll in a pri­ma­ry ed­u­ca­tion fa­cil­i­ty and at­tend the same to mit­i­gate any fur­ther dam­age to him.

“It is high­ly nec­es­sary, giv­en the trau­ma and ex­pe­ri­ences of the claimant (Ja­son) thus far that he be as­sessed and pro­vid­ed with coun­selling by an ex­pert who is ex­pe­ri­enced with treat­ing chil­dren re­turn­ing from war-torn ar­eas,” the let­ter stat­ed.

In or­der to en­sure the ef­fec­tive re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of Ja­son and mit­i­gate him suf­fer­ing fur­ther dam­age Williams ad­vised “We posit that such an ex­pert, ex­pe­ri­enced with treat­ing child re­turnees may on­ly be avail­able in the Unit­ed King­dom.”

Williams said if such an ex­pert prac­tices with­in the lo­cal ju­ris­dic­tion, the AGLA should in­di­cate.

“In the cir­cum­stances, we humbly sug­gest that it may be in the best in­ter­est of the claimant and the re­spon­dent that the cost of the said treat­ment and the costs in­ci­den­tal to same be cov­ered by the re­spon­dent.”

He said the ne­ces­si­ty of the pro­posed treat­ment is un­der­scored by the chal­lenges and dif­fi­cul­ties that have al­ready arisen from the claimant at­tend­ing two sum­mer camps, as per in­struc­tions of his moth­er.

“The claimant’s moth­er has re­ceived sev­er­al re­ports from camp coun­sel­lors that he is hav­ing great dif­fi­cul­ty in so­cial­is­ing with oth­er chil­dren, pay­ing at­ten­tion and com­plet­ing as­signed tasks. It is ap­par­ent that the claimant shall have ex­treme dif­fi­cul­ties in in­te­grat­ing in­to a main­stream ed­u­ca­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty due to his sub­jec­tive cir­cum­stances and ex­pe­ri­ences.”

While Ja­son was ac­cept­ed in­to a gov­ern­ment pri­ma­ry school in Ju­ly, Williams said con­cerns were raised about “his read­ing abil­i­ty” and it was rec­om­mend­ed that the boy be placed in Stan­dard One de­spite his age.

Williams said it was clear that a gov­ern­ment pri­ma­ry school would not be ap­pro­pri­ate for Ja­son at this time due to his lack of for­mal school­ing and the trau­ma he has faced.

“The claimant must be as­sessed by a qual­i­fied ex­pert and pro­vid­ed with the ap­pro­pri­ate treat­ment. Fur­ther, sub­se­quent to said as­sess­ment, it is high­ly like­ly that it would be nec­es­sary and in the best in­ter­est and the wel­fare of the claimant that he at­tends a pri­vate ed­u­ca­tion fa­cil­i­ty, equipped with spe­cif­ic fa­cil­i­ties and sup­port sys­tems to as­sist with his in­te­gra­tion and per­son­al de­vel­op­ment.”

Williams asked that AGLA pro­vide a rea­son­able in­ter­im pay­ment to cov­er the cost of the claimant’s treat­ment “so as to mit­i­gate any fur­ther dam­age to him as well as to al­low for his en­rol­ment in a pri­vate ed­u­ca­tion fa­cil­i­ty.”

Ali was asked to give a sub­stan­tive re­sponse on or be­fore Au­gust 28.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia last week, Williams said, “I don’t think the State cares. That is how I see it. It’s ab­surd.”

He said if the Gov­ern­ment had a prop­er “child-cen­tric pol­i­cy for rein­te­gra­tion, things would have been done al­ready.”

To place Ja­son in a school where he has no so­cial­is­ing and in­te­gra­tion skills, Williams said, may make a bad sit­u­a­tion worse.

“All the con­di­tions may be right for him to be groomed in­to a mon­ster,” Williams said.

Even though Ja­son was ac­cept­ed in­to a pub­lic school, Pe­ters said she would not send her son to school for the new aca­d­e­m­ic in Sep­tem­ber be­cause he has a prob­lem set­tling in and tak­ing in­struc­tions.

“I feel it would be bet­ter if he at­tends a pri­vate school where the teach­ers and so­cial work­ers can iden­ti­fy his short­com­ings and work to­wards im­prov­ing him.”

In the mean­time, Pe­ters said she would con­tin­ue home-school­ing her son un­til bet­ter could be done.