An official complaint was made on Tuesday at the Child Development Unit (CDU) about a teacher, accused of sexually abusing children at the specialized school for the disabled, where he works. On Wednesday during Mireille Martin’s press conference, we asked the minister as well as Karuna Chooramun, the CDU’s director whether any actions had been taken against the teacher. Martin, who had just spent the past twenty minutes trying to absolve herself of every responsibility in the dismal sexual abuse affair at Namasté, said she wasn’t aware of that particular case. The CDU director also surprisingly denied knowledge of the case.

Then she said a most shocking thing; “you need to go to the police to report this case if you have information on this. I will summon you to testify”, Karuna Chooramun told me. End of story, end of allegation.

This is precisely what Mireille Martin told a social worker who went to see her last year, to report suspicions of sexual abuse on pensioners from Namasté. Go to the police and make a statement, she said. Our officers found nothing wrong with Namasté.

The kind of deafness and blindness the CDU and the Ministry of Gender Equality seemed to have developed whenever the issue of Namasté was brought up this past year is baffling. While her services found nothing wrong with Namasté, the Ombudsperson for Children inspected the shelter and reported that Namasté was violating all the norms that should usually apply to a “place of safety”. Mireille Martin’s services didn’t react. The Ministry of Health did though and fi ned the shelter for seven public health infringements. The health inspectors then realized that Namasté didn’t actually have a permit. In other words that the CDU had been sending disabled children illegally to Namasté as the shelter was not registered as being a “place of safety” for wards of the state. That was in February last year.

Martin had to relent on Wednesday when she could no longer deny that things were seriously wrong at Namasté; the permit- if it was ever granted in the first place, was going to be withdrawn.

Yet, when confronted with yet more allegations of abuse on the very children they’re supposed to be protecting, Martin’s services still do not react. Make a statement to the police, they say.

What is wrong with those people? Do they even realize how terribly destructive their reckless attitude is? How the authorities’ dereliction of duty for so long has put those kids in harm’s way?

Martin seemed more preoccupied on Wednesday with her ego and her reputation than with the protection and the well-being of those children. This, I guess is what happens when the word accountability is removed from public governance. Bachoo’s alledged negligence caused the death of eleven people? Martin’s transgression can’t be worse, can it? After all, it’s only disabled, parentless and damaged children. Who cares what happens to them?

One can’t be expected to step down for such petty things, surely?