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Friday, January 31, 2025

The failures of the Children’s Authority

by

1002 days ago
20220504

The re­cent­ly tabled re­port, Safe­guard­ing Chil­dren in Com­mu­ni­ty Res­i­dences and Child Sup­port Cen­tres in Trinidad and To­ba­go, is re­quired read­ing for any­one who wants an in­sight in­to the abysmal state of T&T’s chil­dren’s homes.

With its alarm­ing rev­e­la­tions of wide­spread phys­i­cal and sex­u­al abuse, ex­ploita­tion and ne­glect of chil­dren, this re­port is not for the faint of heart. It ex­pos­es decades of fail­ure by state agen­cies and oth­er en­ti­ties to com­ply with this coun­try’s oblig­a­tions un­der the Unit­ed Na­tions Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child to pro­mote and to re­spect the rights of chil­dren.

But as dis­tress­ing as the con­tents of the 307-page Ju­dith Jones Task Force re­port are, they pro­vide on­ly a snap­shot of the suf­fer­ing en­dured by hun­dreds of wards of the state. The re­al­i­ty is like­ly to be much worse than what was gath­ered dur­ing the few weeks of in­ves­ti­ga­tions and in­ter­views car­ried out by Task Force mem­bers.

There is mount­ing pub­lic pres­sure to act on the re­port’s find­ings, in the hope that jus­tice will be de­liv­ered for the crimes com­mit­ted against res­i­dents of chil­dren’s homes and child sup­port cen­tres.

How­ev­er, what lit­tle com­fort there is to be gained from the as­sur­ance by Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, of con­se­quences for per­pe­tra­tors of these heinous acts, is out­weighed by the reper­cus­sions if there is no swift and de­ci­sive ac­tion to fix the nu­mer­ous prob­lems iden­ti­fied.

That is why there must be a crit­i­cal ex­am­i­na­tion of the spe­cialised agency at the cen­tre of this cri­sis, the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of T&T.

That agency’s fail­ure to en­sure the “care and pro­tec­tion of chil­dren, es­pe­cial­ly those who are at risk or have been vic­tims of abuse or ne­glect,” is ex­ten­sive­ly doc­u­ment­ed in the re­port. These in­clude sig­nif­i­cant short­com­ings in its mon­i­tor­ing of chil­dren’s homes and child sup­port cen­tres, in­ves­ti­ga­tions of breach­es and en­force­ment of penal­ties and oth­er ac­tions as pre­scribed un­der the Chil­dren’s Com­mu­ni­ty Res­i­dences, Fos­ter Care and Nurs­eries Act.

There­fore, tough ques­tions need to be asked about the ca­pac­i­ty of the agency and the abil­i­ty of its staff to car­ry out its most im­por­tant man­date — pre­vent­ing chil­dren from suf­fer­ing ill-treat­ment or ne­glect.

This is not about ap­por­tion­ing blame but iden­ti­fy­ing the gaps and in­ef­fi­cien­cies that con­tributed to the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty’s fail­ure to pro­tect the well-be­ing of chil­dren un­der the care of the state.

The re­port re­veals that the coun­try’s “sys­tem of child­care and pro­tec­tion is fraught with chal­lenges which ex­pose al­ready vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren who come in­to con­tact with the Au­thor­i­ty, the child sup­port cen­tres and the com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dences to the risk of harm and abuse.”

Al­so high­light­ed is that un­der the agency’s watch, at-risk chil­dren have been placed in res­i­den­tial care in­sti­tu­tions that are un­suit­able and "fail to take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the needs and best in­ter­ests of the child."

When the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty was es­tab­lished sev­en years ago, there were lofty ex­pec­ta­tions for changes and im­prove­ments in the coun­try’s child pro­tec­tion regime. Those ideals have still not been achieved.

That is why a crit­i­cal re­view of the agency needs to be un­der­tak­en and so­lu­tions sought for all its fail­ures. It must be done for the sake of the chil­dren.


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