The three teenaged orphaned girls who were in custody at the Albion Police Station on the Corentyne for 24 days were released yesterday, after an appeal was filed on their behalf.
The girls have now been placed into the custody of Sydney Kennard, administrator of the Canaan Home at Port Mourant.
Attorney-at-law Adrian Anamayah, representing the girls, filed the appeal yesterday morning at the New Amsterdam Magis-trate’s Court.
He then moved to the Whim Court where the matter was heard before Magistrate Rabindranauth Singh who ordered their immediate release. They were sent on their own recognisance pending the outcome of the appeal.
The girls: two sisters, aged 13 and 15 and another 15-year-old had been charged with wandering on November 22. A fourth girl, aged 14, was also charged along with them on the same day.
According to the charges, the girls, all under the age of 17 years, were reportedly wandering on Wednesday November 20 at Albion Front. At the time they were residing at the Camal’s International Home for Homeless & Battered Women.
Magistrate Rabindranauth Singh sentenced the three girls to two years each at the New Opportunity Corps (NOC), a correctional facility at Onderneeming, Essequibo Coast. The other girl was released into the custody of an aunt.
However, the matter had also been adjourned to November 26 for the Albion Court when probation reports for the girls were ordered.
Police sources told this newspaper that the girls were delayed at the station because they had been awaiting the probation reports, as well as a birth certificate for one of the girls.
Reports are that the girls were expected to be taken to the Sophia Juvenile Holding Centre in Georgetown before being taken to the NOC.
The 13-year-old and one of the 15-year-olds attended schools on the Corentyne. The 14-year-old went to school in New Amsterdam, while the other 15-year-old had not been attending school.
The parents of the two sisters are dead and they had been staying at the home for the past four years while the younger girl went there about two years ago.
The girls had claimed that they did not want to stay at Camal’s because they were treated badly.
But the founder/president of the home, Carmen Kissoon denied that was the case.
She said, “I am trying to help the kids. I am not abusing or punishing them.” Kissoon said she had asked the social workers to put the children in another home if they did not want to stay at her home.
She lamented that the girls “want to be on the street and I can’t encourage that and loose them just like that…”
Anamayah said he learnt about the case through the media and decided to help the children.
Meanwhile, Director of the Child Care and Protection Agency Ann Greene said in a statement that while the NOC is a rehabilitation and training centre for young offenders, the contention is that children are being committed for status offences-offences which if committed by an adult are not sanctioned.
“It is felt in the child welfare field that status offences should be abolished,” Greene said in the statement. “The offence of wandering, a status offence…, is more or less having a parent who does not exercise proper parental control and supervision, or the child is beyond parental control and supervision…” She said it is felt by social welfare practitioners that by right the parents are the ones that should really take liability for their children’s behavior.
She said that it has been reported that countries where status offence are not in place, parents are known to take better care of their children and take responsibility for their behaviour patterns.
However, Greene said, the reality is many of the children found wandering are beyond parental control and are involved in anti-social activities that are serious breaches of the law and are even in criminal gangs. Children wandering are in a situation that put them at extreme risk of being preyed upon by unscrupulous individuals and sometimes all efforts by social services to correct the behaviour or find safe places and adequate care are often times rejected by the juveniles and the magistrates only action to prevent further destruction of youth is to commit to a training institution.
Greene further said that her agency provides protection for children with adequate parental care and assists parents in the process of providing better care and supervision for their children. Parents are also placed before the courts when they are repeated failures in their child care and protection efforts.
“We also have challenges in state care centres with children who are beyond the control and supervision of the carers – children who are predisposed to delinquent lifestyles and need the assistance of the courts for alternatives,” Greene said.
She said the CCPA sees the need for specialised centres to meet the needs of a number of children in the formal system; needs within a range that includes, mental health issues, substance abuse and intellectual deficiencies.
Persons were highly critical of the absence of a juvenile holding centre in Berbice and called on government to establish one. “If the homes are not up to standard, then where is the alternative?” they questioned.
They also lashed out at the social workers for not conducting investigations earlier and providing the probation report on the children or even going to the station to check on them.
Yesterday, officers from the Child Care & Protection Agency visited the Albion home to conduct investigations.
Meanwhile, at the opening of the Sophia Juvenile Centre in April 2011, Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee had said that his ministry was responsible for juveniles who are remanded by an order of the court.
He had said government through the ministry had decided as a matter of policy that juveniles from age 10 and over but under the age of 17, who have come into conflict with the law, are not to be detained in the same manner like adult offenders.
Rohee had said that the Sophia Juvenile Holding Centre was one of several which will be constructed to “provide for the detention of juveniles who have been held pending charge, etc. and/or on remand and of juveniles who have completed the period of their sentence and are awaiting rehabilitation.”
So far, no other centre has been established.
