The mother of the 15-year-old, who had spent over a week at the Whim Police Station after she was remanded to juvenile custody following an assault charge, yesterday became more frustrated as her daughter’s scheduled court appearance at the Albion Police Station was postponed and she remained at the Sophia Juvenile Centre.
“Right now, I don’t know where to turn. Me daughter will just tek thing on more and ain’t eat. She thought she coming home today [Friday] and now when she still lef deh, I don’t know wah she guh do,” the woman told this newspaper yesterday.
She now has to wait until August 10 to hear what decision the magistrate would make.
On Tuesday, the grieving mother had complained that after her daughter was charged with assault following an altercation with two vendors over garbage disposal, the magistrate, based on the advice of a probation officer, recommended that the child be remanded to the juvenile centre. The woman, who worked in the city, said she had explained to the magistrate that while she is away there were other adults in the home who assisted in taking care of the child.
However, although the magistrate remanded the child to the juvenile centre, she remained at the police station for over week because the mother refused to hand over her birth certificate as she feared that attempts were being made to take her child away. It was only on Monday after she lodged a complaint with the Police Complaints Authority and a call was made to the station that the child was transferred to the city.
The mother had approached the office of the Minister within the Ministry of Social Protection Simona Boomes, who instructed that an investigation be done.
Yesterday the minister said that she had since received a report and while not disclosing its contents, she said she had recommended to senior Minister Volda Lawrence, under whose purview such cases fall, that the child be returned to her mother’s care and the mother be given some form of public assistance. She said this was to help the mother to take care of her three minor children, since she had left her job in the city following her daughter being placed on remand. It is not clear what recommendation would be given to the court when the matter is called again in another two weeks’ time.
This is the second teenager to be held in the police lock-ups since the new administration came into office. Last month, a 13-year-old was kept in the Bartica Police Station lock-ups for close to a week after she was charged with wandering. The girl had left her home days earlier in the company of a 21-year-old man, who was subsequently charged with raping her.
When asked what steps government is going to take to ensure that teenage girls are not held in police lock-ups, Broomes had said she was going to suggest to Minister Lawrence that they engage Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan on the issue. She had stressed that it is wrong for teenagers to be held in police lock-ups.
“I definitely know this is an approach that our government would not take and it is something that needs to be corrected and it needs to be corrected right now,” the minister had said.
At the time of the incident involving the 13-year-old, Ramjattan had told this newspaper he would have worked to ensure that minors are not held in the lock-ups and noted that it had to start with more education for police officers. Had there been a more educated force, he had said, then ranks at the Bartica Police Station would have known that it was wrong to hold a young child in police lock-ups that have no provision for juveniles.
“If we had good police officers at Bartica, understanding the nature of the problem, they could have done a better job of it, rather than shoving her inside of a lockups and then charging her,” Ramjattan had told this newspaper.
