The lackadaisical child care officers who were involved in the Neesa Lalita Gopaul case will face disciplinary action once an investigation currently underway is completed, Minister of Human Services Priya Manickchand said yesterday.
An investigation is currently being conducted at the Ministry of Human Services to determine just how officers there failed Gopaul and while she could not say just how the officers will be disciplined, Manickchand said action will definitely be taken.
Manickchand, speaking with Stabroek News briefly via telephone yesterday, explained that the allegations of abuse against Gopaul were reported to the Child Care and Protection Agency of her ministry. The officers who were handling Gopaul’s case, the minister said, acted on the report, went to the child’s home and initial action was taken.
However, later when the officers returned to check on the progress of the child they were denied access to her and discovered that her mother had collected her from the Anna Catherina home of her grandparents with whom she had been placed.
These officers, Manickchand stated, are given written protocols which they must follow. In Gopaul’s case these protocols were breached and the officers never reported back to their supervisor or any of their superiors at the ministry that they were having difficulty accessing Gopaul.
Manickchand has since admitted that her ministry failed to protect Gopaul but reiterated that the necessary action will be taken to ensure that this is not repeated.
The Human Services Minister – when further questioned about her officers’ failure to properly investigate Gopaul’s case and ensure that she was offered all the protection that was within their power to arrange – told this newspaper that she will host a press conference sometime today. All questions regarding the teen’s case, Manickchand stated, will be addressed during that session.
Another senior official within the ministry also told this newspaper that Gopaul’s case was only one of many not being given the necessary attention and effort. In many instances, the official stated, officers leave files on their desks day after day, go slow on investigations, and do not execute the necessary follow-ups.
The official, who requested anonymity, is convinced that negligence contributed to the horrid end which Gopaul suffered. If the ministry’s protocols had been followed, the official said, the teen’s life could have been saved.
When asked whether this breach in protocol was an indicator that workers at the ministry were not adequately trained, the official said that it was rather a case where trained and able employees had been lackadaisical.
Last days of school
Following the death of Moonsammy Gopaul, the teen’s father, last September, several attempts were made by her mother to pull her from the high school she attended. At the beginning of the current school year Gopaul’s mother, teachers told this newspaper, visited the school and indicated that the child would not be returning.
This newspaper was reliably informed that there have been “indications” from the Ministry of Education that an investigation will be launched. Several efforts made to contact Minister of Education Shaik Baksh for a comment about this were futile.
Several teachers, who were close to Gopaul and were instrumental in having her situation reported to the Ministry of Human Services and police, told this newspaper yesterday that they were upset about recent media reports which suggested that the school did not do anything to protect or help Gopaul.
In the months following her father’s death, they explained, Gopaul’s performance at school started to suffer, she began going to school with marks of violence about her body and later confided in teachers about some of the things she reportedly suffered in her Leonora home where she lived with her mother and stepfather.
On several occasions, the school requested the presence of Gopaul’s mother to discuss her situation at home but the woman never showed up. While teachers declined to go into details about what they had been told by the teen, they said Gopaul was definitely being beaten and these marks were “all over” her body.
Eventually teachers reported the matter to the Human Services Ministry and then to the police. After the report was made officers from the ministry were able to remove Gopaul from her mother’s custody and she was placed in the care of her maternal grandparents. However, a short time after scoring this victory, teachers said, they learned that the child’s mother had taken her from the grandparents.
Last month Gopaul did not return to school and several efforts were made to contact the child’s mother via telephone numbers which the woman had provided. The house number, one teacher explained, “rang out” and the mobile number did not work.
“We did all we could do for her. We cared for her but we could only do so much and up to a certain point and no more,” one teacher stated. “After we handed over the matter to those other bodies it was out of our hands from there.”
On September 24, Gopaul went missing and this was reported to police by her mother three days later. The deteriorating body of the 16-year-old was discovered at Emerald Tower on Saturday afternoon. The body was in a suitcase anchored to the creek at closed Emerald Tower resort.
After the discovery, Gopaul’s mother, her lover and the man’s legal wife were arrested. It is believed that Gopaul suffered severe physical, verbal and psychological abuse at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend. The man’s wife has since been released and the other two remain in police custody as investigations continue.