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Pressure Mounts on Minister Wilfred Abrahams to Resign

I emailed Minister Abrahams the following, I am hoping that he receives many hundreds:

Minister Wilfred Abrahams,


You have failed to protect the vulnerable girls at GIS by removing all the staff who are implicated in the systematic torture of children by routinely incarcerating them naked in a bare concrete cell for days and weeks on end.

This treatment was contrary to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It was also in breach of Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I understand that you have ordered that such torture not be repeated, but you have left the torturers in charge of the institution and you have left vulnerable girls in their charge. Furthermore, you have publicly stated that you have confidence in the staff who inflicted these inhuman and degrading assaults on vulnerable children.

Your catastrophic error of judgement has made me deeply ashamed of my Government.

You have left me no choice but to insist on your immediate resignation from your position as Minister of Home Affairs, Information and Public Affairs.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Thompson

416 responses to “Pressure Mounts on Minister Wilfred Abrahams to Resign”

  1. David Avatar
    David

    The blogmaster of Barbados Underground supports the call by Peter.

  2. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    PLT

    This is insufficient!
    All of these carceral and quasi carceral systems need removing from society.

    For they all harken back to slavery.

    When it comes to prison and semi-prison conditions reforms are inadequate. Only total abolition must be demanded.

  3. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    As social scientists we can always tell the type of country we really have by the way that society treats the most vunerable – prisoners, children, the elderly, etc

  4. David Avatar
    David

    @Pacha

    This is the point former chairman Johnny Tudor just made on national radio. The Act and Protocols harken back to colonial days.

  5. David Avatar
    David

    @Pacha

    And animals.

  6. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    David
    Well, that’s good to know. Maybe he is a new convert?

  7. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    Yes
    And animals, of course

  8. WURA-War-on-U Avatar
    WURA-War-on-U

    It all has to be ripped down, they are still using slave laws that are over 100 years old on Black children….slave codes are still in force and BLACK FACES in parliament refuse to remove them….i just wish the police would understand….since i also support them knowing what they are also subjected to…that slave codes and slave laws are ALSO BEING USED ON THEM….stop falling into the trap of brutalizing black children and black people… all to maintain a dirty, enslaving status quo…

  9. Everton Rowe Avatar
    Everton Rowe

    Yesterday, Peter posted the following
    A society is judge by how it treats it weakest members – Mahatma Gandhi

    This is an issue where some of us should emerge from the shadows and voice our opinions. Peter, please allow me to shed my cloak of anonymity and stand with you on this matter.

    The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

    Edmund Burke

  10. Tony Avatar
    Tony

    Is he a patient ??????

    “You have left me no choice but to insist on your immediate resignation from your position as Minister of Home Affairs, Information and Public Affairs”
    +++++++++++++++++++++++

    Pack your bags and check in @ de BDS physiocratic hospital 🏥 IMMEDIATELY…

  11. David Avatar
    David

    The more one listens to players who have been affected by the sorry tale it seems to a simpleminded blogmaster that successive governments have been lazy to invest the elbow grease to revamp an archaic framework at GIS and no doubt elsewhere.

  12. 555dubstreet Avatar
    555dubstreet

    I disagree when Governments and Agents have been proven to do wrong and everyone starts talking about changes in laws / new regulations / Parliamentary reviews / inquiries / public parliament debates etc. Law is intuitive and existing laws have clearly been broken. Governments duty is to serve it’s people and not the other way around. People can and should be charged the law way already for mistreatment of people in care.
    This is just a blatant attempt to stick this issue in a freezer.

  13. 555dubstreet Avatar
    555dubstreet

    Government can either take action for the abuse committed in it’s name or it can turn a blind eye and either condone it or support it. They have to step up to the plate and start making decisive action for heads to roll and/or start chopping off heads of state.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5nml-jVJZo

  14. WURA-War-on-U Avatar
    WURA-War-on-U

    Mia had ample warnings to GET RID OF THE SLAVE LAWS AND SLAVE CODES off the statute books and rejig the whole ROTTEN SLAVE SYSTEM..and dismantle it out of Black lives……immediately she was elected that’s the FIRST THING I TOLD HER…..so she has to take what’s coming and don’t resist or it can get much worse..

    now she knows i was not being her enemy…

  15. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    Carceral logics effect all of us. Not only people physically incarcerated.

  16. lyallsmall Avatar
    lyallsmall

    I don’t support the call by PLT.

    I heard part of the press conference yesterday and read the available info surrounding it on BU and in the Press and I think that PLT’s call for Minister Abrahams to resign forthwith is essentially meritless at this time. No case has been made to link Minister Abrahams directly with the obscene action taken by the GIS on the young lady. Minister Abrahams immediately took a suite of actions to ensure that similar action will not take place in that institution in Barbados again. He also apologized profusely.

    PLT’s stance in this matter runs counter to the way he dealt with the involvement of his white friend in the drug contraband case. There, he did his best to ensure due diligence. Here, He wants to rush headlong into calling for MInister Abrahams to take punitive action against himself and his record in Government.

    Let the PM take any action that might be required against Minister Abrahams. Barbados’ image might have taken a hit in this matter but the nexus between the action and the Minister has not been proven.

    Festina Lente!

  17. WURA-War-on-U Avatar
    WURA-War-on-U

    As i said, it will get much worse if that slave system complete with slave codes is not abolished and ABANDONED…

    https://scontent.fbgi3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/163973433_10159041890335535_464728137269152861_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=RJGOgPu781kAX8ykxW9&_nc_ht=scontent.fbgi3-1.fna&oh=c61f2a00708e0897d7dec69e6c66b539&oe=607F91BC

  18. angela cox Avatar
    angela cox

    All these govt ministers should resign
    All of them a waste

  19. WURA-War-on-U Avatar
    WURA-War-on-U

    …and here comes the naysayers….the minister is responsible for what goes on at GIS …HE IS PAID A SALARY SO NOTHING LIKE THAT OCCURS…all of them from BOTH STUPID GOVERNMENTS should be made to RETURN EVERY DIME they took in salary and pensions from the Black taxpayers in the last 54 years…they are both responsible for EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG ON THE ISLAND…they set the stage and kept the slave laws…

    that’s the problem with many, they do not like to hold those vote begging frauds in the parliament accountable or responsible for the destruction they cause in Black lives..

    The text was cut off but this goes with the above photo.

    “Olutoye Walrond
    ti1Sponsorfhfed ·
    EXTRA! EXTRA! BREAKING NEWS 2 4 6!
    ON THE CARIBBEAN ISLAND OF BARBADOS CHILDREN IN PENAL INSTITUTIONS WILL NO LONGER BE MADE TO SLEEP ON CEMENT FLOORS NAKED.
    THE YEAR IS 2021, THE DAWN OF THE SECOND DECADE OF THE 21ST. CENTURY.”

  20. David Avatar
    David

    @Lyall

    The call for the minister to resign should not be taken as personal, it has to do more with the fact he is minister of Home Affairs and key representative of government for the matter. It is called holding the government accountable via its agents.

  21. TheOGazerts Avatar
    TheOGazerts

    No photo.
    I was very disappointed with the actions of the Minister.
    First he targeted the whistleblower who provided the evidence
    The he replaced an outspoken board member who was opposed to tis barbaric treatment
    Then he appointed a board with members that appear to have little sympathy or empathy for these children
    Where needed and important changes should be made, he allowed the staff to stay intact.
    He has done much that amounts to doing nothing.
    Where leadership was required, he passed the buck.
    He should be fired.

  22. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    David

    We hope that your general behaviour over time disabuses the minds of detractors that you are and have always been willing to take stances based entirely on notions of right and wrong.

  23. David Avatar
    David

    @Pacha

    Is there another way to do it?

  24. David Avatar
    David

    It is custom for a new minister to appoint his own board. Marsha was appointed by the former minister, Hinkson if memory serves. That said Minister Abrahams had an opportunity to create goodwill by appointing Marsha as Chair or at least reappointed as deputy chair.

  25. TheOGazerts Avatar
    TheOGazerts

    Point taken, but at times you make it too complicated.
    🙂 Man punish good woman
    Man bad
    Punish man 🙂

  26. David Avatar
    David

    Here is Peter on today’s call in program. His opening salvo was cut.

  27. peterlawrencethompson Avatar
    peterlawrencethompson

    @lyallsmall March 22, 2021 12:53 PM
    Read what I wrote. I did not say that the Minister was involved with the torture of those girls, I said that he had failed to remove the other wards of GIS from the charge of people who routinely torture vulnerable children. That is unacceptable. It is inhumane. It is evil.

    The Minister further said that he had full confidence in the staff who had perpetrated these inhumane and degrading tortures as a matter of course to many, many of the children in their charge. This is a catastrophic error of judgement that has placed the well being of the remaining six children of the institution is severe jeopardy.

  28. lyallsmall Avatar
    lyallsmall

    TheOGazerts, re. your above post;

    Please post where you got the below info:
    First he targeted the whistleblower who provided the evidence
    How did he target the whistleblower? What action, etc.

    Then he replaced an outspoken board member who was opposed to tis barbaric treatment
    Source? If true, this should weigh heavily in his own replacement

    Then he appointed a board with members that appear to have little sympathy or empathy for these children
    appears?? Which new Board members appear to have little sympathy or empathy to these children? or is it all of them?

    Where needed and important changes should be made, he allowed the staff to stay intact.
    Expand! So none of the things which he says he’s put in train will work because the staff remain intact, according to who?

    He has done much that amounts to doing nothing.
    Expand! What are the many things he’s done that are counterproductive?

    Where leadership was required, he passed the buck.
    Who did he pass the buck to? If you could prove this you should get some points to buttress PLT’s call

    He should be fired.
    Perhaps, but not by PLT!

    David:
    You said above “The call for the minister to resign should not be taken as personal, it has to do more with the fact he is minister of Home Affairs and key representative of government for the matter. It is called holding the government accountable via its agents.”

    I understand and agree somewhat. I had the impression that Abrahams was a better than average, diligent and empathetic Minister. So, in this case, it seems to me, that there should be some measure of due process before wreaking a career. The young lady was treated abysmally but 2 wrongs do not make a right and I do not see the direct linkage between the minister and the horrible treatment meted out to the young lady. Perhaps what might be needed is an inquiry rather than a process which is more North American than Caribbean.

  29. WURA-War-on-U Avatar
    WURA-War-on-U

    that’s what ya get in wannabe family dynasties, pure corruption and nonaction.

    ….Black people are definitely in danger…AND HAVE TO DO SOMETHING TO PROTECT THEMSELVES AND THEIR CHILDREN..

    PLT…abrams is married to Mia’s cousin.

    she didn’t remove the dude Odle from the Port though knowing how toxic he is, she waited for things to blow over and quiet down…

  30. WURA-War-on-U Avatar
    WURA-War-on-U

    “Perhaps what might be needed is an inquiry rather than a process which is more North American than Caribbean.”

    trust the naysayer to call for another money wasting inquiry….where MILLIONS OF TAXPAYER’S DOLLARS ARE STOLEN and nothing comes from the money sucking inquiry…..

    remember they had one to remove nelson 22 years ago and when pressure mounted to remove the ugly blighted statute in 2020, they claimed to need another one…..thinking everyone had forgoten the one from 2 decades before, until it got exposed on the blog…

    Ms. Hinds and others said that MULTIPLE REPORTS WERE WRITTEN AND SENT TO the government, ministers etc over the years…and ALL WERE IGNORNED……so why is an inquiry needed.

    ye shall be known by ya fraudulent intent….

  31. Miller Avatar
    Miller

    @ David March 22, 2021 1:23 PM
    “It is custom for a new minister to appoint his own board. Marsha was appointed by the former minister, Hinkson if memory serves. That said Minister Abrahams had an opportunity to create goodwill by appointing Marsha as Chair or at least reappointed as deputy chair.”
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    That would have represented an innovatively moral and politically strategic move to counter any calls for his resignation.

    Instead we have a naïve novice on the political chess board who- by not functioning as a protective knight- has allowed a queen to be captured like a common pawn.

    How can her replacement- bedecked in the materialistic garbs of a female bishop- ever wrestle this king of an institutional challenge to the ground when her philosophical outlook and modus operandi are the very embodiment of the very culture which has given rise to the brutal treatment and violation of the rights of those children?

    What is needed at this stage is a change agent to sit in the Chair blessed with the your ‘Jesus loves the little children’ approach; not one lumbered with the plantation slave mentality of inflicting violence in whichever form to show the other yard nig**ers their place.

  32. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    Seems PLT could be doing Abrahams a favour if he gets him to resign.

    ” Wilfred Abrahams is an attorney-at-law and founder and head of Aegis Chambers “

  33. WURA-War-on-U Avatar
    WURA-War-on-U

    hint, hint……it’s time for the corrupt to get an INTERNATIONAL AWAKENING..

  34. lyallsmall Avatar
    lyallsmall

    PLT March 22, 2021 1:49 PM

    @lyallsmall March 22, 2021 12:53 PM
    Read what I wrote. I did not say that the Minister was involved with the torture of those girls, I said that he had failed to remove the other wards of GIS from the charge of people who routinely torture vulnerable children. That is unacceptable. It is inhumane. It is evil. The Minister further said that he had full confidence in the staff who had perpetrated these inhumane and degrading tortures as a matter of course to many, many of the children in their charge. This is a catastrophic error of judgement that has placed the well being of the remaining six children of the institution is severe jeopardy.

    Perhaps I jumped into this mess prematurely and, having no knowledge of the individual actors and previous actions of the same type, I agree with you that the torture was unacceptible, inhumane, evil and perhaps embued in innate depravity on the part of the relevant staff. But It seemed to me that Minister Abrahams was trying to correct the institutional wrongs and that the actions he had taken were in the right direction. Perhaps he did not go far enough, but as a total outsider I couldn’t judge those matters. As a Bajan, such actions are not only egregious but might open us up to deserved ridicule by our peers in the other Caribbean Islands and, where we have significant interactions with citizens of First World countries, humbling comments. Perhaps that is what underlies some of the comments we see here from our Diasporic kin.

    I do not think that calling on Minister Abrahams to immediately resign will produce that specific remedy as we still far from a first world country. A call to the PM to investigate and take the necessary action might have been better. But who knows? You might be right.

  35. peterlawrencethompson Avatar
    peterlawrencethompson

    @lyallsmall March 22, 2021 2:01 PM
    I understand that you were offended by the way I “dealt with the involvement of his white friend in the drug contraband case.” You are correct that I did do my “best to ensure due diligence.”

    My call for Minister Abrahams to take such a decisive action as to offer his resignation is not taken lightly, but after days of agonising deliberation.

    It is more than a week since the awful torture of children at the GIS was made public by the newspaper. It is many months since the evidence of abuse was put in front of the Minister by former Board Vice Chair Marsha Hinds-Layne. It is several years since authoritative studies and reports on the grave deficiencies in the juvenile justice and child care systems in Barbados have been sitting on shelves in his Ministry.

    Our Parliamentary democracy is a system of Ministerial responsibility. Minister Abrahams is not personally to blame for the catastrophic failures of the system, but under our system of government he is fully responsible.

    We waited patiently for a full week for the Minister to address this catastrophe. He did apologise to one girl and her immediate family; that was good. He did issue a cease and desist order against that the specific regime of torture that she was subjected to; that was also good. He ordered an investigation into the operations of the institution; again, a good and necessary move. He replaced the advisory board with a new board; this is suspect because it was the Vice Chair of the old board that had been alerting him to the problems but he had refused to act on her advice until the whole mess blew up in public even though he had months in which to do so. He now has a new advisory board, but will he continue to refuse to take advice from it?

    The decisive factor is that he has refused to take the other girls at GIS out of harms way. Every single minute that those girls remain in the charge of staff who routinely have tortured them their well being is in serious peril. The girl whose picture was in the paper was not the only victim of torture; published reports indicate that every single vulnerable girl admitted to this institution was subjected to this inhumane and degrading abuse. Every Single One!

    I am no political yardfowl who calls for politicians to resign for trivial and partisan reasons. I make this appeal only after careful and considered deliberation. It causes me pain, but the Minister has left me no ethical choice but to do so. I do not expect that it will be the end of his career; he has simply made a serious error of judgement. If he does the honourable thing I fully expect he will be offered a new Ministry the next time the Cabinet is shuffled, probably within 9 to 15 months.

  36. 555dubstreet Avatar
    555dubstreet

    “As a Bajan, such actions are not only egregious but might open us up to deserved ridicule by our peers in the other Caribbean Islands and, where we have significant interactions with citizens of First World countries, humbling comments.”

    Similar wrongs happen everywhere in the world. Developed and evolving nations hold those responsible accountable rather than burying or shying away from some such matters. It’s not a matter of embarrassment but more of an outrage.

  37. WURA-War-on-U Avatar
    WURA-War-on-U

    This says it all….when ya using slave laws from 1980 to apply to BLACK CHILDREN IN 2021.

    “Cuhdear BajanMarch 22, 2021 2:31 PM

    Feeding children biscuits and butter and tea as punishment is wicked. Even if the 1890 law said that the staff was permitted to do so, how idiotic are the authorities that they would obey foolish laws?

    The government is paying $30,000 BDS per year to keep a child in care, and good nutritious food cannot be provided with that money? I know that I can feed any child good, tasty, nutritious meals for less than 10% of that money. I would bet anything that the staff also eat on site, and I would bet anything that they get good food, and very likely TOO MUCH of it. Barbados has or had a vibrant tourist industry and good cooks in Barbados are a dime a dozen. GIS has no good cooks on staff? Please note that when the Covid positive tourists and others in “care” complained about the food in the isolation facilities, a CHEF was hired. No foolish talk about “we can’t do neffen ’bout it” because some foolish 1890 law prescribes biscuits and water or tea? I would bet anything that when our Parliament meets they are provided with good, tasty, nutritious food [even though ALL of them earn enough money to bring their own food from home] and very likely too much of it. No talk about 1890 laws then.

    My lovely parents, even though they did not go to school past 11 and 13 years NEVER EVER withheld food from a child even though every one of us behaved badly at some point in our childhood. They taught us never to withhold food from our children. So “yes” even if one of my children should commit murder I would NEVER withhold nutritious food. So if my parents who did not go too far in school understood that you do not withhold food as punishment, is something wrong with our well educated officials that they do not understand this?

    P.S. if we provide tax funded meals to our Parliamentarians we need to stop. Let them bring a sandwich a banana and a flask of tea to work just like the parents of these poor children have to do. Or better yet let us deduct from their Parliamentary salaries the commercial cost of every meal provided.”

  38. WURA-War-on-U Avatar
    WURA-War-on-U

    This says it all….when ya using slave laws from 1890 to apply to BLACK CHILDREN IN 2021.

    even my fingers are SHOCKED…that laws from the 1890s are still being used on Black children in Barbados…

    but they keep Black men imprisoned without trial or bail for 10 years and then claim they forgot the people were at the prison.

    all of this VIOLATES HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL LAWS.

  39. Heather Avatar
    Heather

    I too support the call for the Minister’s resignation, the closing of the GIS and the dismissal of its family, friends and neighbors staff.

  40. peterlawrencethompson Avatar
    peterlawrencethompson

    @PachamamaMarch 22, 2021 11:49 AM
    “This is insufficient!
    All of these carceral and quasi carceral systems need removing from society.”
    ++++++++++++++++++
    You are correct of course. That is exactly why I am calling for the Minister to resign. One of the root causes of our collective dysfunction is the way our coloniality operates to evade responsibility. In this case we urgently need to rediscover the principle of Ministerial responsibility. This mess is not Minister Abraham’s fault, but it is his responsibility. He has made such a serious error of judgement in failing to protect the other girls at GIS from the torturers who have been entrusted with their “care” that he must be obliged to offer his resignation.

  41. lyallsmall Avatar
    lyallsmall

    PLT re. your last post:

    Thanks. You have adequately explained the background to your making the call for Minister Abraham’s resignation. I am now convinced that you had good reason to make the call. However, I would be surprised if Mr Abraham accedes to your call. But I have often been surprised by the actions of politicians.

  42. Heather Avatar
    Heather

    @Lyall, So why did the Minister fire the Board? Were they responsible for the abuse?

  43. David Avatar
    David

    @Lylall

    In the so-called Westminster system we practice it is the tried convention for a minister to resign in situations like this or be relieved of the position by the PM.

  44. David Avatar
    David

    @Heather

    It is the convention for a new minister to appoint a Board of his choosing.

  45. Heather Avatar
    Heather

    @ Lyall, Peter Thompson is not the subject of debate here. His views on the abuse of minors under the care of the State is.

  46. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    PLT

    Ok! Necessary but insufficient.

  47. Heather Avatar
    Heather

    @David yes at his choosing but in this instance to silence them for bringing this matter into the public domain.
    This new advisory board is still only advisory. If change occurs it will be because of public outcry. What advice can they provide that the former board could not.

  48. David Avatar
    David

    @Heather

    Agree and posted a point above that there was an opportunity for him to earn goodwill by retaining the Board or at minimum Marsha.

  49. Heather Avatar
    Heather

    Also a public inquiry must occur. No one in Barbados should rest until those doors are closed.

  50. David Avatar
    David

    The doors do not have to be closed because there is a need for an institution to house deviant juveniles. What needs to change are the laws and protocols governing the setup.

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