Boodhu Rejects Child Blame, Apologises to Teen’s Family Over PM’s Remarks<\/p>\n
People’s National Movement Deputy Political Leader Sanjiv Boodhu has strongly criticised Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar over her comments surrounding a 13-year-old girl who was reported missing and subsequently found in the company of an adult man.<\/p>\n
Speaking on behalf of the PNM, Boodhu insisted that children must never be blamed for situations in which adults may have exploited or manipulated them.<\/p>\n
His remarks followed controversy surrounding the recovery of the teenager, who had been missing for 26 days before being located by the Hunters’ Search and Rescue Team.<\/p>\n
The Prime Minister had defended the search team’s work while warning that teenagers who choose to behave like adults could face consequences under the law.<\/p>\n
Boodhu rejected what he considered an attempt to place responsibility on the child.<\/p>\n
He argued that adults who encourage inappropriate relationships with children must be held accountable rather than allowing young victims to carry the shame and stigma associated with such incidents.<\/p>\n
Drawing on his experience as a criminal defence attorney, Boodhu said adults convicted of offences involving children sometimes complete their sentences and return to society, while the children involved continue to live with the emotional consequences.<\/p>\n
He acknowledged that the full circumstances of the teenager’s disappearance were not known and said the investigation should be left to the police.<\/p>\n
However, he maintained that protecting children must remain the priority regardless of the circumstances.<\/p>\n
Boodhu also criticised the Prime Minister’s response, describing her comments as insensitive and irresponsible.<\/p>\n
Speaking from the PNM platform, he extended an apology to the teenager and her family.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Children’s Authority has confirmed that the girl is in its care and will receive appropriate psychosocial support.<\/p>\n
The controversy has also raised questions about the public identification of minors, the responsibilities of volunteer search teams and the importance of protecting children from further trauma following their recovery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sanjiv Boodhu Says Missing Teen Deserves Protection, Not Blame, Following Prime Minister\u2019s Public Comments<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trinidad-and-tobago"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}