The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

THE Ministry of Education will investigate the failure of some children in shanty towns to attend school, acting Director of Education Dominique McCartney-Russell said yesterday.

The absence of some school-aged children from school was highlighted last week after the government restarted its effort to eradicate shanty towns by posting eviction notices throughout the Kool Acres and All Saints Way communities.

The Tribune encountered children playing in Kool Acres rather than attending classes when it visited the community.

A 12-year-old boy said he and his siblings couldn’t attend school because they had no money after immigration officers apprehended their mother last week Monday.

A mother-of-six recovering from a house fire in August said she was too broke to send her children to school.

 Mrs McCartney-Russell told The Tribune yesterday that sometimes children in shanty towns don’t attend school because their guardians fear immigration officers would apprehend them.

“I remember when I was a district superintendent, we went into areas where I couldn’t carry my car with the red plate because if I did that, people would hide from us, so sometimes they are afraid that if they attend school, that immigration will pick them up from school.

 “When they come to school, immigration does not come to the school. We ensure that whoever is presented to the school, that they have sorted enrollment.”

 Mrs McCartney-Russell said that, usually, there is a monthly report about chronically absent students.

 “When students are not in school, our guidance counsellor is made aware,” she said. “We would actually call in social services to assist to make sure those students can get into school. In fact, social services will normally help with the basics, the uniform, those kinds of things, so that there’s no barrier, no hindrance for those children being in school.”

 Human Rights Bahamas said immigration officers were “ruthless” last week Monday while posting eviction notices in two shanty towns. Sixty people were reportedly apprehended.

 “Human Rights Bahamas was disgusted and ashamed to read of the latest ruthless crackdown on communities of Haitian ethnic background and in particular the arbitrary detention of a mother, leaving her young children utterly alone and without support, guidance or protection,” the group said in a statement.

 “This is only a single case of forcible abandonment of children that has recently come to light – it is not the first, and it will sadly not be the last. Who knows how many more children have suffered this fate in silence because of the inhumane, arbitrary, and unlawful policies of the Bahamas Immigration Department?

 “If they were born here, the Immigration Department would do well to remember that these children who they heartlessly leave with no way to feed or clothe themselves, find shelter or attend school, are Bahamian citizens in the making. Such insensitive, brutal policies are creating the next generation of disaffected, disenfranchised, alienated, and angry young people.”

“HRB further calls for the adoption of a modern, humane, and internationally acceptable immigration enforcement policy.”

“HRB is in the process of reporting these matters to its international partners, including Amnesty International and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.”

 On Friday, Immigration Minister Alfred Sears said he ordered an investigation into reports that a 12-year-old boy and his two siblings were left to fend for themselves after officers arrested their mother in the Kool Acres shanty town.

 The investigation, he said, will also look into whether residents were abused as some of them claimed.