The Psychiatric Hospital is on heightened vigilance following the escape of a Government Industrial School (GIS) ward said to be on suicide watch at the mental health institution.
The disclosure came on the same day that the High Court refused to grant an interim order to overturn a magistrate’s ruling that put the 13-year-old girl at the state-run GIS, and the organisation that had sought the court order declared it would appeal the judgement.
Up to the time of going to press, the girl’s whereabouts were still unknown.
The teenager, along with another female GIS ward recently escaped from the juvenile reform facility at Barrows, St Lucy, amidst allegations of abuse. The two turned themselves in after being on the run for about a week.
Director of the Psychiatric Hospital David Leacock said the girl’s escape from the Black Rock, St Michael institution was a concern to management. Although saying that escapes are possible due to the nature of the facility, Leacock assured: “We will try to make sure that we encourage our staff to be as vigilant as possible.”
“The protocols are in place. We are not a prison and, so, the possibility is that a person can always escape,” he told Barbados TODAY. “We will try to make sure that all the protocols that are supposed to be there are definitely being observed.”
The mental health administrator also confirmed that the girl’s admittance to the Psychiatric Hospital was justified, saying: “All persons that come to us, once we admit them we believe that they need to be here.”
But women’s and girls’ activist and former GIS deputy chairperson Marsha Hinds on Monday attributed the repeated escapes by the minor to her having to remain in a system of alleged abuse.
“When you are a child and you are saying constantly, ‘I have been abused’ and all you get is a collective national silence about the abuse that you face, and the insistence that you must go back to the institution where the [alleged] abuse occurred without anything changing, what does a child do? I don’t even know as an adult what I would do in that circumstance,” she told Barbados TODAY. “And really, I think we have to understand the actions of this child.”
Hinds, who is also co-director of child advocacy organisation, Operation Safe Space (OSS), was adamant that the Government has not provided a safe space for children who exhibit behavioural issues because of traumatic situations but are still in need of care.
“So, I think this young lady, in her own way, may have quite unintentionally focused our attention on the real crux of what this issue is…because the Government Industrial School and the treatment at the Government Industrial School, was a part of the problem; but also the question of where do we place children like her is an unanswered question,” Hinds added.
She said Monday’s decision by Madam Justice Barbara Cooke-Alleyne to deny OSS’ request to relocate the girls from GIS, has made a bad situation worse.
“The judge is of the opinion that she does not have the jurisdiction to overturn the decision of the magistrate’s court that put the girls at the Government Industrial School in the first place,” disclosed the former president of the National Organisation of Women (NOW) in reporting on the outcome of the court case.
“This is one of the concerns that we have: the fact that it seems very easy to get children into the juvenile justice system in Barbados, and almost impossible to remove them from that system. Once they are in there, they are in there.”
Hinds insisted, however, that her group would not play dead following the unfavourable ruling.
She revealed that the OSS intended to challenge the High Court’s decision before the local Court of Appeal and beyond.
“What is next is that we will avail ourselves of the next step, which is to take the matter to the Court of Appeal in Barbados. We have also actively started the process of having an international review, honouring our responsibilities under various international treaties which we have signed with respect to this matter,” she disclosed.
Contending that what is playing out is not in line with international best practice, Hinds added: “And so, we have triggered the process for an international review of the matter to ascertain whether our understanding is correct and that Barbados is acting outside of international best practice.”
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
