SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@gmail.com

Af­ter sev­en years, a mi­nor who re­turned from for­mer­ly ISIS-con­trolled Syr­ia has been grant­ed T&T cit­i­zen­ship. It means he can now ac­cess ed­u­ca­tion and health­care.

It was a bit­ter­sweet mo­ment for the boy’s moth­er, Crys­tal Pe­ters. She told the Sun­day Guardian she feels some­what be­trayed that Gov­ern­ment is ad­vanc­ing a pol­i­cy to in­te­grate mi­grants in­to the pri­ma­ry school ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem by Sep­tem­ber when she had to home school her son for years.

“These are things I al­ways talk up against. The ques­tion I have to ask is if you could do it now, what was the prob­lem be­fore? You are talk­ing about in­no­cent chil­dren be­ing de­nied an ed­u­ca­tion,” she said.

Pe­ters vent­ed her feel­ings on Fri­day, one day af­ter For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne an­nounced plans to ed­u­cate the mi­grant chil­dren. She said she fought for her eight-year-old son Ja­son (not his re­al name), who was born in Syr­ia, to get an ed­u­ca­tion in T&T but was faced with so many ob­sta­cles, it broke her spir­it.

Pe­ters ad­mit­ted that she broke down in tears at her Mal­oney home on Thurs­day when Browne made the an­nounce­ment dur­ing a hu­man­i­tar­i­an break­fast se­ries. Her tears were mixed with anger, hurt and dis­ap­point­ment be­cause she had strug­gled for months to get Ja­son the ed­u­ca­tion he right­ly de­served.

Born in Syr­ia in 2015, Ja­son was repa­tri­at­ed with his moth­er and sis­ter from Turkey sev­en years ago. At that time, he was just one year old.

Ja­son’s fa­ther claimed he was go­ing to Turkey to play pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball but end­ed up in Syr­ia for sev­en months.

Pe­ters was de­nied doc­u­ments for Ja­son, a for­mer Syr­i­an refugee and, in turn, ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion since they re­turned.

Be­tween 2013 and 2016, at least 130 T&T na­tion­als trav­elled to Is­lam­ic State (ISIS) con­trolled ter­ri­to­ries in the Mid­dle East—the most peo­ple per capi­ta in the West­ern hemi­sphere ac­cord­ing to Hu­man Rights Watch.

“I felt so hurt be­cause as a cit­i­zen of Trinidad, I could not even get my son in­to a school here be­cause I had no form of doc­u­men­ta­tion for him. Now to hear the chil­dren of these mi­grants will soon be af­ford­ed an ed­u­ca­tion it’s painful. I be­came emo­tion­al. I don’t want peo­ple to feel that I have some­thing against the mi­grants’ chil­dren. That is far from the truth be­cause I be­lieve that all chil­dren de­serve the right to an ed­u­ca­tion and should be treat­ed fair­ly. But this was not the case. It was like a slap in my face when you look at it,” said Pe­ters.

She said the au­thor­i­ties in Syr­ia nev­er gave her a birth cer­tifi­cate for Ja­son.

“Ja­son is ca­pa­ble of do­ing Stan­dard One work,” Pe­ters said with pride, adding that her son is “very smart.”

“He can’t read full sen­tences. He is now iden­ti­fy­ing one word at a time,” she said.

Pe­ters said she was tak­en by sur­prise last month when her at­tor­ney Criston J Williams in­formed her that the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty had grant­ed Ja­son his T&T cit­i­zen­ship.

“Girl, you talk­ing to me and my pores rais­ing. Girl, I cried, you know. Why all the fight down? I went through hell and back. Af­ter eight years you de­cide to pass the doc­u­ment. And you grant­ed him cit­i­zen­ship as a mi­nor. So, when my son reach­es the age of 18, he would have to fight up again.”

Pe­ters said she was asked to pick up the doc­u­ment at Williams’ of­fice on a par­tic­u­lar day but when she ar­rived in Port-of-Spain her feet buck­led.

“I nev­er reach. I went back home. It take me a week to muster the strength to go to my lawyer. Is like I still can’t be­lieve it af­ter wait­ing so long,” she said.

Ja­son’s fa­ther was killed in Syr­ia sev­en years ago.

“They bombed him down us­ing a drone,” Pe­ters re­called.

Last month, she vis­it­ed a school in her com­mu­ni­ty to en­rol her son but had a change of heart.

“I watched the be­hav­iour of the chil­dren. I don’t think he could fight up there. It would be too much for him.”

She hopes he can start school in Sep­tem­ber and is still look­ing around for a place.

Last week, she en­rolled Ja­son in a sum­mer camp in Mal­oney. It was his first op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­ter­act with chil­dren but the third day of the camp, he was sent home for be­ing rude and banned from par­tic­i­pat­ing in an ex­cur­sion.

Pe­ters ad­mit­ted that her son has a prob­lem so­cial­is­ing and min­gling with oth­er kids.

“He was away from chil­dren for so long he can’t so­cialise very well, or he may not even know how to in­ter­act with chil­dren. That is an is­sue I have ob­served. My heart is bleed­ing a lot for him be­cause I see where he is try­ing to fit in.

“My son is try­ing to be a child but what hap­pened over the years has af­fect­ed him in so many ways. As a moth­er, I know he has been fac­ing a tough life,” she said.