Latest update December 23rd, 2024 3:40 AM
Youth locked up for 7 years freed after child rights intervention
Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan and Ian Henry at the press conference yesterday
Almost seven years after being detained for murder, 19-year-old Ian Henry, an Amerindian youth from Baramita, North West District, was released from the Juvenile Holding Centre in Sophia, Georgetown, after the intervention of the Rights of the Child Commission, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the Georgetown Legal Aid Clinic.
Henry was only 13 when he was charged for murder and remanded awaiting a trial date; but without proper representation and the court date being canceled, in addition to other obstacles, Henry was forced to be in state detention for all those years.
He recounted his time in the detention centre at a press conference held at the Ministry of Public Security yesterday.
“This jeopardized my whole future, no one can give it back to me,” Henry said. He told reporters that like him, there are many other youths who are currently in the same situation he was fortunate enough to get out of, because of the help of the three entities who stepped in.
“If I had not met these people, I would still be in here. Just imagine, from the age of 13 to 19,” he said.
Henry said that he was denied an education. “How can I go back to Secondary school? My dreams were snatched away from me,” he said.
Henry said that his only option now is to attend a trade school. He told the media that there should be a system in place to educate youths while detained.
Meanwhile, Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan said that he was saddened by the situation when it was brought to his attention. He said that he was unaware of the issue but when Amar Panday, Chief Executive Officer at the Rights of the Child Commission, approached him for permission to visit Henry, he granted same.
The Minister said that after stories about the matter began to surface, “I decided that I was duty-bound to ensure this Juvenile Justice Bill becomes a reality,” he revealed.
He told reporters at the press conference that poverty, impoverishment and the lack of resources from an interior area can make for long detention periods for young children.
He added that with the recently passed Juvenile Justice Bill, youths will have a right to Counsel, and if they can’t afford it, the state will provide same.
He said that a lot of the children in this situation are from poor families.
“I do not want a jailhouse nation for our children,” the minister said. He added that children will no longer be charged for running away and wandering in addition to other minor offences.
He said: “We have to climb into that new regime of an international system where the guidelines are very modern.” In order to do this, he said, it will be expensive, because the government has to build halfway houses, employ a professional staff to take care of the youths, and provide free legal counsel in addition to other things.
Meanwhile, Panday said that more must be done to help with the cases of children being unrepresented. He said that over 95% of the Children that were held at Juvenile Centers were denied their rights to legal representation.
He said that his entity, armed with that information, approached UNICEF who released funding which they provided to the Guyana Legal Aid Clinic, who commenced providing legal representation for the youths in need.
He added that, “had it not been for that diagnosis and the intervention of UNICEF and the Guyana Legal Aid Clinic, this gentleman (Ian Henry) could have still been in state detention.”
The Rights of the Child Commission is currently looking into other cases where several other children need representation but are unable to afford same.
Two of the cases are currently pending while two, including Henry’s, were dismissed.
Henry was detained in 2011 for murder and released a few days ago when the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) found that there was not enough evidence to proceed with the matter.
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