Minister Says Investigation Will Determine Where Youth Belongs

On Friday, we brought you Minister of Education, Francis Fonseca’s input on the thirteen-year-old boy who was rounded up as a part of the state of emergency. The minor is presently at the Wagner’s Youth Facility, but there has been some criticism that someone his age does not belong in that kind of setting. Minister of Human Development, Dolores Balderamos-Garcia explains to News Five that there needs to be an investigation to determine where the youth actually belongs.

 

Dolores Balderamos-Garcia, Minister of Human Development

“Momentarily or temporarily, I could say, he is at the Wagner’s Youth Facility, but we are making a further check to see what is happening because I do know that UNICEF and our partners and even the prison authorities themselves are concerned about the tender age, but the information that our ministry had received from the police is that the, youth was a – what we would call a tough customer. But of course, we as the Ministry of Human Development have a responsibility to check and as a matter of fact, we’re at the Community Rehab Department right now and they are the ones who are assisting us, to make the check to see if the child would probably remain at the Wagner’s Youth Facility, or if the child should be transferred to New Beginnings. Because let me, mention a little something here, Marion, New Beginnings – what used to be called Youth Hostel, we call it New Beginnings now because we want to give that impression of helping the children. The difficulty that we have in our country is that we don’t have separate facilities for all different kinds of children, so sometimes at New Beginnings, you might have sexually abused children, or you might have somebody who was neglected. You might have a migrant child, or you might have children who have already come in conflict with the law. So, it’s not that we don’t want to deal with each and every case individually, but we don’t have the level of facility to really accommodate all the different kinds of children. In relation to the thirteen-year-old, there are ongoing interventions, there are ongoing investigations and if we see that thirteen-year-old really belongs at New Beginnings, then we will certainly make that transfer. So, I want to assure you that it is sometimes a difficult balance between the protection of the rights of children who are under eighteen and the protection of the community because even at a young age, you can have gang members who are influencing young children to go out there and do wrong.”