“All chil­dren are hap­py, healthy and con­fi­dent; and their rights are re­spect­ed, pro­tect­ed and pro­mot­ed to fa­cil­i­tate their holis­tic de­vel­op­ment to­wards achiev­ing their fullest po­ten­tial as con­struc­tive mem­bers of so­ci­ety now and in the fu­ture”

Green Pa­per, Na­tion­al Child Pol­i­cy, Gov­ern­ment of T&T.

The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty re­ceives an av­er­age of 5,000 cas­es of re­port­ed child abuse and ne­glect an­nu­al­ly. For the month of June 2025, the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty re­ceived 423 re­ports – 51.5 per cent were fe­males and 48.2 per cent were males. Out of the to­tal num­ber of re­ports, 31 per cent were cas­es of ne­glect; 18.5 per cent were for sex­u­al abuse; 11.9 per cent were for phys­i­cal abuse and vi­o­lence and 10.3 per cent were for emo­tion­al/ver­bal abuse.

The sta­tis­tics for the pre­vi­ous months al­so tell the same sto­ry – too many of T&T’s chil­dren are be­ing ne­glect­ed and abused. And these are the cas­es which are re­port­ed. There are oth­er homes where chil­dren are not pri­ori­tised, where they are scared, hun­gry, ne­glect­ed and cry­ing, but they are not re­port­ed.

A re­cent in­ci­dent where charges were laid un­der the Chil­dren’s Act, rais­es an im­por­tant ques­tion – how se­ri­ous are we about pro­tect­ing chil­dren in this coun­try? When we see cas­es where adults who are em­ployed to help chil­dren but are en­gaged in ac­tiv­i­ties and be­hav­iours that are harm­ful and trau­mat­ic for chil­dren, we need to adopt an at­ti­tude of ze­ro tol­er­ance.

We keep miss­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to show that we re­al­ly care about our chil­dren.

In 1997, a re­port on abuse in chil­dren’s homes (Sab­ga Re­port) stat­ed that phys­i­cal, sex­u­al and emo­tion­al abuse af­fect­ed about 30 to 40 chil­dren in homes. Noth­ing was done to help the chil­dren. The re­port was buried and those re­spon­si­ble for the abuse went on with their lives.

Twen­ty-five years lat­er, not sur­pris­ing­ly, a re­port com­plet­ed by Jus­tice Ju­dith Jones showed the preva­lence of sex­u­al and phys­i­cal abuse by staff and se­cu­ri­ty; the adults hired to pro­tect the chil­dren. This time, there was the to­ken re­sponse; those in au­thor­i­ty ex­pressed their deep re­gret, promised to act on the re­port and em­pha­sised their com­mit­ment to mak­ing changes.

A child pro­tec­tion task force was es­tab­lished and $129 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed for the up­grade of homes. What should have hap­pened was the im­me­di­ate clo­sure of all homes where cas­es of abuse were ev­i­dent, the chil­dren re­moved and re­lo­cat­ed, and the abusers charged with child abuse. But in true Trin­ba­go style, we like to talk but don’t want to do the hard work.

Say­ing they will be giv­en time to fix their is­sues or do bet­ter is the same as say­ing that we do not care about chil­dren.

Af­ter the Ju­dith Jones re­port was re­leased, homes were giv­en time to up­grade. Do we re­al­ly be­lieve that changes to phys­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture mean that abuse will end? Cer­tain­ly, we do not think that train­ing staff will au­to­mat­i­cal­ly stop them from be­ing abu­sive. The on­ly way to end abuse is to ar­rest and charge abusers. Every time we drag our feet, we are con­don­ing child abuse.

It is im­per­a­tive that we send a very strong mes­sage that we do not tol­er­ate child ne­glect and abuse in any form and that any­one en­gaged in any act against a child will be pros­e­cut­ed.

We have to get rid of this jokey at­ti­tude we have to­wards adults who take ad­van­tage of their po­si­tions. Whether they are par­ents, care­givers, teach­ers, staff at homes, coun­sel­lors - they must un­der­stand that they are negat­ing their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and there are reper­cus­sions when chil­dren are be­ing hurt. Think about the child who trusts an adult and how he/she feels when that trust is be­trayed.

We are not lack­ing in laws and rec­om­men­da­tions. Pre­vi­ous re­ports and var­i­ous in­ves­ti­ga­tions and aca­d­e­mics have put for­ward nu­mer­ous rec­om­men­da­tions over the years. We need ac­tions more than words. We need to im­ple­ment the ac­tion plans and poli­cies which al­ready ex­ist. We need stronger con­se­quences for those who com­mit of­fences against chil­dren and back­ground checks for any­one work­ing with a child.

If we fast-track child abuse of­fences and pros­e­cute of­fend­ers in­stead of let­ting them off on bail, we will send a stronger mes­sage that we are se­ri­ous about our chil­dren. We have the laws but un­til we ef­fec­tive­ly im­ple­ment them, abuse will con­tin­ue be­cause abusers know they can get away.

The same ap­plies to in­sti­tu­tions – it is time to pros­e­cute the homes which are named in the re­ports and in­ves­ti­gate those from where chil­dren run away reg­u­lar­ly.

Da­ta from the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty’s live dash­board is deeply dis­turb­ing and em­bar­rass­ing for our coun­try.

Chil­dren have rights and we are ob­lig­at­ed to de­fend those rights. In the words of for­mer Pres­i­dent of T&T, Mr An­tho­ny Car­mona:

“The coun­try’s adults have failed to set good ex­am­ples of prop­er con­duct, hu­mil­i­ty, tol­er­ance and re­spect for our chil­dren. We have stum­bled and we keep on stum­bling. We have spawned a gen­er­a­tion that is in cri­sis. We need to re­turn to ba­sics as the rip­pled ef­fects of ne­glect­ed and abused chil­dren af­fect­ed the so­ci­ety too, caus­ing the coun­try as a whole to reap the fruits of their dis­con­tent.”