The way is now clear for the High Court to hear a petition requesting the relocation of two female wards of the Government Industrial School (GIS).
The ruling was handed down on Thursday in the Barbados Court of Appeal by appellate Justices Rajendra Narine, Jefferson Cumberbatch and Margaret Reifer.
Child advocacy organisation Operation Safe Space (OSS) took the matter to the Court of Appeal after High Court Judge Barbara Cooke-Alleyne turned down an earlier request to rehouse the girls, declaring that she had no jurisdiction to overturn a 2021 magistrate’s order that put the teens in the juvenile reform facility in the first place. The OSS has been contending that Barrows, St Lucy where they are housed, is not safe given claims of abuse which have been alleged.
Today, the three-member panel of justices ruled that the rehousing issue can be heard by the High Court, but must be presided over by a different justice.
“This particular matter is about sought interim relief for the girls to be rehoused, pending the filing of whatever substantive legal actions in their case. The Court of Appeal has allowed the matter of the interim rehousing of the girls to be reconsidered,” Co-Director of OSS Dr Marsha Hinds told Barbados TODAY following the Appeal Court’s decision.
Dr Hinds said the Court of Appeal is treating this matter as a priority and that her organisation expects a new High Court date to be set in short order.
“We are on an urgent application. The Court of Appeal is treating the matter with urgency. They have also recognised and accepted that urgent element is important in this case and so we are anticipating that very shortly we will have a hearing date,” said the former deputy chairman of the GIS. She pointed out that while the OSS is happy that progress was being made in addressing the needs of the girls, there are still some lingering concerns.
“While we are happy that the needs and the safety of these girls seem like there are more squarely docked on the table for consideration by the court, we remain concerned that where they are now is not what we recognise as a safe environment for a child,” the activist argued. She said that regardless of the outcome of the court moving forward, no one can go back and undo the trauma the girls are experiencing while the legal process was unfolding.
“We would have hoped that by now, the Minister [Home Affairs], the Prime Minister, the Child Care Board…that somebody in Barbados would have recognised that more is needed to be done to protect these girls,” she stressed.
Regarding the substantive legal issue, the co-director of the child advocacy group said it relates to the alleged breaches of the girls’ constitutional rights.
“All of what we have done up to this point is just to get these girls rehoused. It isn’t even the substantive matter that the court is considering as yet. So there is still quite a bit of legal engagement before us to even get the constitutional matter considered,” Dr Hinds pointed out. “If it is successful, then we would expect that the girls would be compensated and supported in any and all ways that would be fitting a person that was deprived of their constitutional rights,” the former president of the National Organisation of Women (NOW), declared.
“Hopefully by the time we get there, whatever remedies…if we are able to persuade the court that their constitutional rights were breached, we would hope that the outcomes are serious enough, and in line with what breaches of constitutional rights should look like,” Dr Hinds suggested.
She also explained that if the constitutional rights case ended in their favour, it would benefit all existing and future wards of the juvenile reform institution.
“All of this would benefit the wards now and in future. And I want to say a big thank you to the parents of these two girls for being strong enough to persist with this process. Exactly because of that, not only are they helping their girls, their individual family members, but they are also helping to set down precedence that would hopefully benefit all children moving forward in terms of how they are cared for when they become in need of care,” Dr Hinds contended.
She pointed out that the OSS has been insistent that this case be handled by the judicial system, rather than being dependent on the “good grace” of senior government officials.
“Another reason why the Operation Safe Space team was already adamant that this case needed to be ventilated within the judicial space, we have depended on gentleman’s agreements from ministers before. We have depended on the good grace of a female in power or somebody in a position to be able to help these children,” she noted.
According to her, when it is dealt with in that “off-the-book manner”, the global change needed is not being achieved.
“It is one of the reasons why the Government of Barbados had gotten to promise change in the juvenile legislation of Barbados for well over 20 years without actually delivering the change. We recognised that having this record of a court process is important to make sure that every other parent after this, every other child after this, every other attorney representing a child like this has the support of documentation to be able to adequately represent their clients and their family members.”
The teen girls had previously escaped from the reform school for about a week before turning themselves back in. They were subsequently referred to the Psychiatric Hospital for treatment, but one of the girls also escaped from that mental institution. One was reported to be on suicide watch.
It is not clear if the girl is still on the run.
A departmental investigation is underway at the female and male units of the GIS as ordered by Minister of Home Affairs Wilfred Abrahams. He is adamant that he wants to get to the bottom of a history of claims of abuse at the school, promising to share the findings with the Barbadian public.
The minister also pledged that all necessary action would be taken against anyone found culpable of any wrongdoing. He has also made it possible for present and past wards of the GIS, staff and members of the public who have evidence to support any claims, to make that information available to the investigators
The girls are represented by attorney-at-law Anya Lorde, while Marsha Lougheed from the Solicitor General’s Office appeared for the State.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
