On 23 April 1993 a magistrate in the Port of Spain Juvenile Court imposed a sentence of flogging on a 11-year-old boy who had pleaded guilty to charges of being in possession of cocaine. The sentence was carried out immediately by the police on her orders. The magistrate further ordered the boy to be confined and to receive no visitors, not even his parents. This sentence was in violation of international standards to which Trinidad and Tobago is a Party, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The law for offenders under 16 stipulates that they can be sentenced to a maximum of 6 strokes with a tamarind or similar rod, however in this case the defendant was sentenced to 20 strokes. Furthermore the right of appeal is seriously restricted under the law.
