PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Aug 1, CMC -The High Court has ordered the state to compensate three Venezuelan children who were held in in a facility where there were no provisions for their recreational or educational welfare.
Master Shurlanne Pierre said also that “there were no play areas which, we know, are quite important for children,” ages 12, seven and two years, while they were held at the heliport in Chaguaramas, west of here.
Each child will receive TT$425,000, plus interest, “for what they have suffered.”
Pierre ordered that the sums be deposited to the court which will then put it in an interest-bearing account for the children by the registrar. When they reach the age of 18, they can apply for access to the money. In the interim, their mother can apply to the court for whatever she may need, to meet the children’s immediate needs
The children and their mother were detained at the heliport from December 15, 2020, to February 17, 2021, after a High Court judge ordered the mother’s conditional release. A deportation order was issued for the mother on January 12, 2021, but not the children.
They had arrived illegally in Trinidad on November 17, 2020, with scores of other Venezuelans and were arrested shortly after.
They were escorted out of Trinidad and Tobago territorial waters by the Coast Guard in the vessel they came in. However, on November 24, they tried again to enter the country and were arrested by police.
They were first detained under a quarantine order in connection with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic at a health facility, later at a police station and then transferred to the heliport.
In July 2023, the heliport was designated an immigration detention centre after a High Court judge held that the facility, at the time, was not a designated detention centre as prescribed for in the Immigration Act.
The heliport was established in June 2020 by then National Security Minister Stuart Young as a quarantine and detention facility to house people detained by the immigration authority during the pandemic.
The judge said the designation had an end date for when the pandemic was officially declared over.
The children’s mother successfully filed a constitutional motion and damages were ordered, to be assessed by a master.
In her affidavit, the mother said that at the “military facility,” they were put in an area with tents and cots.
“There was no means of privacy under the tents and all the cots were placed in rows. All the adults, both male and female and all the children had to stay under these tents in close proximity to each other. There was no separation of the male adults and the children.”
She said they stayed under the tents for more than 20 days.
In January, Justice Margaret Mohammed quashed the mother’s deportation order and in a separate ruling involving some of the other Venezuelans in the group, Mohammed ordered TT$2.4 million for a mother and her 15-year-old son for their detention at the heliport.
CMC/af/ir/2024