Indeed,
concerned employees at the school, who spoke with TnT Mirror to
back up the claims of an ex-inmate, insist that the young boys are
allowed to leave the compound to buy marijuana, just about one block
away.
“We do not need drastic measures from the cops,” our
informant stated, adding, “all we want is for some plainclothes
officers to come in and observe the breakdown of law and order.
“If they make random checks, they will expose everything and
catch somebody,” he insisted.
“They get drugs right around the corner.
“Nobody searches the boys who get permission to go in the
shop, outside.
“If they search every boy that leaves here to attend secondary
school elsewhere when they return on evenings, they are sure to
find something.
“But that is just a small part of the problem at the school
where criminal buggery is institutionalised, with supervisors even
using some of the boys for toys.
“St. Michael’s needs a serious purging and it starts
from the head going down.
“These reports are too constant, too regular and nothing is
being done,” he lamented.
“Just about one month ago, the boys held an orgy in the area
where they sleep.
“Sometimes they open the classrooms on the weekend and a few
of them conduct an orgy.
“Now that the place is enclosed, they have nowhere to go and
nothing to keep them occupied, so they get into all kinds of criminal
mischief.
“Someone must make a jail, because if that does not happen,
it will continue unchecked as it has, for years,” the angry
informant suggested.
“As night falls, everything goes down.
“The constant buggering of boys is ridiculous because now
they are using protection in the form of condoms.
“There are at least five supervisors working per shift at
the school, which gives us a rough estimate of 35 officers on board
and I dare say that most of them are buggering the boys on evenings
after school and on weekends.
“There have been several cases of vandalism on the school
compound and the boys claim that they are doing it because officers
encourage them.
“Right now, a senior boy is the one being used to break out
the younger boys and pimp them afterwards.
“Anyone who complains to the managers is pushed aside with
talk that the matter will be investigated, even though there is
never any move to do anything like that.
“This senior boy will be able to convince anyone that he’s
innocent.
“He can say it with a straight face and the cycle just continues.
“But then how can we blame him?
“The truth is, he was abused and never got any help.
“The younger boys are afraid of him because he can really
fight.
“He bullies, buggers and then try to say he’s protecting
them from other boys.
“Only a few male officers -- three of them -- do not get into
the folly; the others are slack like hell,” our informant
stated.
“These boys need role models and they have nobody to look
up to but anyone who tries to uplift the children and not keep them
in the negative life is upbraided.
“They are physically, emotionally and mentally abused and
when they retaliate they are deemed wrong because there is nobody
who could stand up for them.
“The children are just violent because they do not know how
to communicate with each other and most times they have to hit each
other.
“Most of them come in here and end up much worse, because
nobody cares about their rehabilitation even though what happens
here is common knowledge to the folks at the Social Services Ministry,
the police and even the Ministry of Education,” he insisted.
“During the day, the boys go to the trade shops and the primary
school. “A few go to SERVOL and some who live here even attend
secondary school.
“But every attempt to do something to get the boys to use
their brain and latent talents is met with serious objection from
the supervisors and managers who do not think that they are capable
of redemption and prefer to use them for ugly purposes,” he
noted with sadness.
“Now the school officials are also putting up resistance to
anyone trying to get them to use their minds to introduce sports
like basketball and even reading programmes and games.
“The school has a budget to work with but the money goes into
people’s pockets, so nothing comes from that either. They
get donations and we do not see where the money is going because
we still need better physical infrastructure and facilities to put
good programmes in place so that we can treat the boys better than
animals,” he lamented.
“Indeed, I can tell you that the adults have St. Michael’s
the way that it is and they behave worse than the boys.
“They have no standards and do not even want to introduce
a uniform, for example, for the children who attend school at the
compound.
“The children, as you may have heard before, are not properly
attired even though people donate clothes for them on a regular
basis.
“When people donate stuff, the supervisors go with the good
things and leave the old things for the boys,” he added with
concern.
“Foodstuff comes to the school in bulk and they tote away
the best; the boys get what is left behind when they should get
first preference.
“These boys are willing to write about how they feel for someone
to take their complaints to a higher level and some even confide
in some members of staff,” he explained.
Our informant continued: “A lot come in from broken homes
and they do not get any help, so they are filled with anger and
hate.
“Even the primary school at the compound is working against
the tide because children stroll in to school late, some with bare
feet, others do not bathe or eat breakfast before they go to the
classroom.
“For reform, you must have discipline which should start with
the head; the supervisors, but that is nonexistent here,”
he noted.
“Therefore, it should come as no surprise to you that a number
of boys run away and they prefer to live.
“I see some of them staying at Tamarind Square, rather than
take that dog treatment.
“The school authorities send out warrants but the boys are
smarter than the police. “They rather go on the streets than
be buggered, robbed and bullied, they just climb over the gates
and leave and never turn back.
“A lot of them have potential but they go the other way because
they have no other means,” he said.
“Even worse, the parents do not come to visit them and the
supervisors tell them hurtful things, especially if they never see
a mother or father.
“At least 60 per cent of the parents just drop the boys there
and never turn back, leaving them in pure hell,” our sad and
angry informant ended. |
