Quoting Psalm 127, Tobagonian PNM Senator Shamfa Cudjoe said she came from a culture and community that believed children were wealth and happiness. She said she was the fourth of eight children and her father always quoted the Psalm which said children were “like arrows and blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.”
Cudjoe was throwing her “two-cents worth” into the debate on a Government motion Wednesday evening calling on the Senate to approve the 2014 Foster Care Regulations, Children’s Community Residences Regulations and the Children’s Authority Regulations. Stating the Opposition was supporting the motion in principle, she said it was among the most important legislation ever brought to Parliament.
It was an issue dear to her heart, the normally biting Cudjoe said in a toned-down note. She charged, though, there was politicising of the child protection issue “on all sides.” She said Gender Affairs and Child Development Minister Clifton De Coteau spoke about the many crimes against children committed under the past PNM regime and said the legislation brought by his Government was the best thing that happened for them.
“We need to go up and above that,” Cudjoe said, her voice rising. She said the process started 14 years ago when the PNM introduced the Foster Care, Children’s Community Residences and the Children’s Authority Acts. The Foster Care Act is still to be proclaimed and the Children’s Authority legislation only partially so. She said the public was still waiting on reports on investigations into the abuse of three boys at the St Michael’s Home and Brandon Hargreaves at another institution.
Cudjoe made several recommendations for the motion, among them training young people to deal with children in the homes. She said most of the caregivers at faith-based homes were old women. Young men who reported to the police they were raped by women also ought to be taken seriously, she said. “I heard stories where police officers told them, ‘What you reporting that for? You should be happy.’ she added.