Human and gender rights activist Felicia Dujon has insisted that parents pressing ahead with legal action against the Government over last year’s controversial Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) survey are not doing it for financial benefit.
She defended parents in the face of accusations that they were taking the action because they were seeking money.
Dujon insisted that parents who are taking action over how the survey was administered simply wanted “atonement and . . . justice”.
“I saw some claims where people are saying that the parents may be using their children for monetary purposes. It’s not about that, it’s about justice,” she said at a press conference on Tuesday.
“And once harm has been done, everyone understands what justice is. So it is very important that when we see people trying to get atonement for the harm that was done that we support them.”
Dujon added: “If the state did any harm and the court proves that it did harm, then they have every responsibility to pay and make atonement for that”.
She said more parents should join the lawsuit against the Government.
“We live in a very small society so we need to provide support. We have to stand up for each other. We have to stand up with each other when we see any type of Government that wants to overreach its authority,” Dujon said.
Last October, first-form students at five secondary schools completed the IDB survey as part of a Computer Science pre-test that included several questions which sparked public outrage. These included whether students ever deliberately tried to hurt or kill themselves, heard sounds or voices that other people think aren’t there, thought about suicide, or wished they were of the opposite sex.
Barbados TODAY reported last Friday that the Ministry of Education had been formally served with a pre-action warning letter indicating that court action would be taken unless it agreed to accept liability for the impact that the survey had on students.
Attorney-at-law Ajamu Boardi, who is leading a three-member legal team representing three parents who are bringing the action, disclosed that the parents of the children were seeking, among other things, damages.
However, he said he was leaving the door open for an out-of-court settlement if the State accepts and agrees to the claims outlined in the parents’ letter before the matter is lodged in court.
“We are saying they breached the provisions of the Data Protection Act, they breached the clients’ right to privacy, frustrated their legitimate expectations with respect to privacy, parental rights, family life, and the rights of their children,” Boardi had told Barbados TODAY. “There is a constitutional aspect as well. They have breached their rights not to be deprived of property under the Constitution, the property being the data collected.”
(AH)
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