Akash Sama­roo

Un­li­censed chil­dren’s homes say they’ve been giv­en no di­rec­tive to cease op­er­a­tions de­spite not meet­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s March 31 com­pli­ance dead­line.

In Oc­to­ber 2022, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Child and Gen­der Af­fairs, Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy said changes will be com­ing to the Chil­dren’s Com­mu­ni­ty Res­i­dences, Fos­ter Care and Nurs­eries Act, which would make it il­le­gal for chil­dren’s homes to func­tion while not be­ing li­censed.

And on March 3, 2023, Min­is­ter Web­ster-Roy said at least eight homes would not have been able to meet the re­quire­ments in time and the state would en­sure that the ap­prox­i­mate­ly 231 af­fect­ed chil­dren in those fa­cil­i­ties would be moved out of the com­pounds and ac­com­mo­dat­ed else­where.

“Would we have a sit­u­a­tion where some chil­dren would be in a fa­cil­i­ty that is un­li­censed? I don’t an­tic­i­pate that,” the Min­is­ter told a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment back then.

How­ev­er, it seems as if find­ing a home for the af­fect­ed chil­dren won’t be an is­sue at this time, as yes­ter­day, the last day of the dead­line, at least two homes said they’d re­ceived no in­struc­tions to shut down op­er­a­tions.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, De­o­raj Sookoo, the man­ag­er of the St Jude’s Home for Girls, a fa­cil­i­ty which, ac­cord­ing to the 2021 Ju­dith Jones re­port, has around 56 res­i­dents but is un­li­cenced, said they were still func­tion­al.

“I am await­ing the PS’ (Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary) guid­ance on the sta­tus of the in­sti­tu­tion, and I still have not got­ten a di­rec­tive yet, so I am still wait­ing on the Min­istry’s guid­ance. As far as I know, they are in our care at this time, and I will con­tin­ue in that vein un­til I am giv­en any di­rec­tive,” Sookoo said.

Sookoo said while doc­u­ments were sent to the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties, they have not re­ceived an of­fi­cial li­cence. He said it will be busi­ness as usu­al un­til he’s told oth­er­wise. On March 3, the Min­is­ter said the St Jude’s home was at “70 per cent readi­ness for li­cenc­ing.”

Mean­while, the La­dy Ho­choy Home, which on March 3 was 79 per cent ready for li­cenc­ing, told Guardian Me­dia that it too was not told to cease op­er­a­tions.

“Our home is not on­ly chil­dren; it is chil­dren and adults, so they’re still try­ing to work out how to go about with that,” said Sis­ter Clare Marie, the trea­sur­er of the fa­cil­i­ty.

She told Guardian Me­dia that there are cur­rent­ly on­ly 15 chil­dren in their care.

Sev­er­al ques­tions were sent to Min­is­ter Web­ster-Roy for com­ment on the is­sue yes­ter­day, but she promised to do so at a me­dia con­fer­ence on Mon­day.

But Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Princes Town and shad­ow Min­is­ter for Gen­der and Child Af­fairs, Bar­ry Padarath, yes­ter­day said the Min­is­ter’s de­lay in is­su­ing a state­ment was un­ac­cept­able.

“There’s no sense of ur­gency in treat­ing with these mat­ters. I re­al­ly hoped the Min­is­ter would have bro­ken her si­lence be­fore March 31, be­cause she has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go and she should have had in­for­ma­tion at her fin­ger­tips if she was on the ball.”

Padarath said giv­en that it was the Min­is­ter who set the March 31 dead­line, it was clear she has no idea what is hap­pen­ing at the homes.

“There­fore, the chal­lenges we con­tin­ue to see af­fect­ing the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty and the sec­tor that deals with the pro­tec­tion and the rights of the chil­dren, we are not re­al­ly sur­prised by those chal­lenges, be­cause we have seen very lit­tle com­mit­ment com­ing from the Min­is­ter her­self and the Gov­ern­ment. This is al­most one year lat­er since those two re­ports (Sab­ga 1997 and Ju­dith Jones 2021) were heav­i­ly ven­ti­lat­ed in the pub­lic do­main and there has been very lit­tle ad­vance­ment by this Min­is­ter with re­spect to the pro­tec­tion and rights of chil­dren.”

He said he hopes the pub­lic sees how much the Gov­ern­ment pri­ori­tis­es its chil­dren.

Padarath is won­der­ing if the Min­is­ter will seek to ex­tend the March 31 dead­line by way of a le­gal no­tice.

The oth­er homes named as those which will not be li­cenced in time were the Jairah/Raf­fa House, Mar­i­an House, Mary Care Cen­tre South, Casa de Cora­zon, Fer­n­dean’s Place Chil­dren’s Home and the Cyril Ross Nurs­ery.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­is­ter on March 3, the plan was for at least 60 of the chil­dren in those fa­cil­i­ties to be ab­sorbed by li­cenced in­sti­tu­tions.

Guardian Me­dia al­so sent sev­er­al ques­tions to the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go but they failed to re­spond.