RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Pro-choice ac­tivists cur­rent­ly are out­side the Pa­lo Seco Sec­ondary School.

They are ac­cus­ing school of­fi­cials of pres­sur­ing their chil­dren to take the Covid-19 vac­cine.

Po­lice are now at the scene.

The group was ac­com­pa­nied by the First Wave Move­ment and its leader Umar Ab­du­lah and so­cial ac­tivist Ed­ward Mood­ie, who have staged sim­i­lar protests out­side the Pleas­antville Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive, Bar­rack­pore West Sec­ondary and at Ram­co In­dus­tries in the past.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Mood­ie said they were dis­ap­point­ed in the ac­tions of the prin­ci­pal, for­mer pres­i­dent of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion De­vanand Sinanan, who is­sued a let­ter on Jan­u­ary 22nd, ask­ing for stu­dents to be vac­ci­nat­ed.

"We are not against the vac­cine. We are not an­ti-vaxxers. We are pro-choice. We think peo­ple should be al­lowed to make a choice and it is wrong to pres­sure par­ents and stu­dents in­to tak­ing a vac­cine if they are un­com­fort­able with tak­ing it," Mood­ie de­clared.

He said it was un­true to say the vac­cine re­duces trans­mis­sion and makes the virus less con­ta­gious.

"The prin­ci­pal sent out this let­ter and it is against the Min­istry's pro­to­cols. The Min­istry nev­er in­struct­ed that in­for­ma­tion to be sent out. In­stead, the Min­istry has in­vit­ed chil­dren to fol­low all pub­lic guide­lines," Mood­ie said.

“Chil­dren are feel­ing pres­sured. The par­ents are in fear of com­ing out to­day and they are afraid of be­ing vic­tim­ized,” he added.

In the let­ter dat­ed Jan­u­ary 5th, the prin­ci­pal in­di­cat­ed that chil­dren are sched­uled to be out to phys­i­cal class­es on a ro­ta­tion­al ba­sis.

"The school is fi­nal­iz­ing the lo­gis­tics of such phys­i­cal re­sump­tion. As such, the school has been en­forc­ing all rel­e­vant health and safe­ty pro­to­cols as de­fined by the Min­istry of Health. You are strong­ly urged to en­sure that your child/ward is ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed to min­i­mize their risk of trans­mit­ting the virus," Sinanan wrote.

School of­fi­cials have de­nied im­ple­ment­ing manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tion poli­cies at the school.

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This is a de­vel­op­ing sto­ry and Guardian Me­dia will bring you more as this sto­ry un­folds.