Court takes six children

SIX CHILDREN, aged three months to six years, have been taken into temporary custody of the State as their mother faces abandonment charges before the court.

The children were rescued from their Rio Claro home three weeks ago by police, after being informed by villagers who were outraged at the treatment the children were receiving from their parents. Following investigations by police, the youngsters, six, five, four, two, one and a half years, and three months old, were moved into a home for abandoned children located in East Trinidad. The children’s 38-year-old mother is currently before the Rio Claro Magistrates’ Court on abandonment charges, and hearing of the matter is to continue next month. Police said the father was previously charged with assaulting one of the children, and that case is also pending before the court.

One of the caregivers told Newsday the children arrived at the Home undernourished and appeared not to have had a bath in several days. She said: “They were in a bad state. Their clothes were filthy, and we just had to dump the clothes. Most of them were barefeet, only one of the girls was wearing a pair of slippers.” She said two of the children were covered with sores and insect bites. During the first night at the home, the three-month-old infant was found to have been suffering from a severe chest cold and was taken for medical treatment at the Mount Hope Medical Complex where he was warded for almost two weeks. The caregiver told Newsday: “Food was not enough for them. At first the eldest one (who is a boy), would take away the little ones’ food. But we had to explain to him that that was not right, that his brothers and sisters had to eat too.”

From the children’s behaviour, the caregiver said she believed the children were victims of excessive physical abuse. “The two eldest boys (six and four years old) were always fighting and being very rough with their younger sisters. We had to tell them that they don’t treat little girls like that,” she said. From speaking with the children, the caregiver learnt that the four-year-old girl said she usually took care of her three-month-old baby brother. However, due to overcrowded conditions, the home made a request for the children to be moved to another facility. During the hearing of the case last week at the Rio Claro Magistrates’ Court, an order was made for the children to be accommodated at another home in South Trinidad. The care-givers at the home said the eldest child seemed traumatised by his past. “He seems to always be wanting affection. Then other times he would appear ‘jumpy,’” the caregiver said. “We try to be very warm to them because they need a lot of love.”