Fuad: Help ‘invisible kids’

SPECIAL help must be given to a vulnerable group of youngsters, the children of prison inmates, implored Barataria/San Juan MP Dr Fuad Khan in his budget contribution on Monday in the House of Representatives.

“There is an invisible group in this country who suffer from serious mental health but they don’t get help. These are the children of incarcerated parents.”

When their parents are torn away from their lives, those youngsters who are under age 18 usually have no visiting rights to see them in prison, Khan said.

“This invisible group of children are languishing outside and are seven times more likely to become truants as compared to the normal child.

“These children of incarcerated parents, we need to look at, because there is a high population in the jails itself, mothers and fathers.”

Khan said these children are taken care of by grandparents or uncles and aunts. “They are abused. Mentally they feel deficient. They feel ashamed. They look for outlets, either alcohol, gang-related activities and substance abuse, and they become truant.” They are seven times more likely to end up as their parents, with serious mental problems.

“I’d like the Minister of Health to dedicate a place for them to go to,” Khan said. “Also I’d like the Ministry of National Security to look at this because there have been studies in the US about these children of incarcerated parents where they have bonding with their parents on a weekly basis, being able to go to specific areas in the prisons made to be friendly to these children.”

D’Abadie/O’Meara MP Ancil Antoine rose to complain Khan was irrelevant but was overruled by Speaker Bridgid Annisette-George.

“Years ago, we were able to get the children to go in to meet their parents at specific times – Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and sometimes Christmas.”

Dedicated centres for inmates children plus prison visits will help reduce mental illness in youngsters, Khan said.

“You need to put this on the front burner.”

Otherwise Khan said more must be done to TT’s 55-60 per cent rate of childhood obesity. He said studies show the breast feeding of babies cuts their chance of suffering NCDs and obesity in later life. Khan said alternatively the feeding of milk formula to children kicks off a lifelong cycle of addiction to concoctions of sugar, salt and oil which over-stimulate the brain’s hypothalamus. “Parents have to be strong enough not to give in. Fat children make fat adults.”

Otherwise Khan said Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar had personally promised him to decriminalise marijuana within the first 90 days of a UNC government, should they win the 2020 general elections.