New Under-16 Curfew Measure Takes Effect

Chester Williams

So there is no date for schools to re-open but at midnight tonight, new curfew measures restricting those who are sixteen-years-old and under take effect. From four p.m. to eight a.m. starting April seventeenth, these minors will not be allowed on the streets countrywide. It was a move motivated by Commissioner of Police Chester Williams, who told News Five today that the goal recognises the United Nations Declaration on the Protection of Children, during this time of crisis. He also spoke about exceptions that will be made.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“We have been asking for this curfew for some time now because since we began this pandemic operations, we have been seeing a number of children roaming the streets during the daytime. Yes, we were enforcing all along the six to six curfew, but that was not enough. We wanted to see how we can get better control of the children during the daytime with the view to have them not being on the streets. And so it has been approved that we will get the curfew from four p.m. to eight a.m. which means that parents who may not be able to go to the store because of the fact that they might have other children at home to care for, will still be able to send their child to the store to buy. The fact that we have the curfew for children between four and eight does not mean that there is an absolute prohibition for a child to be on the street between four p.m. and eight p.m.; there has to be some exceptions. We are looking at an exception as maybe let’s say you have an essential worker who is a single parent. That essential worker might need to go to work from seven or eight and they have a babysitter that cares for the child when they go to work. There is nothing wrong for that essential worker to care for the child to the babysitter before going to work. Another example would be maybe you have an emergency and you cannot leave the child at home—you need to go to the hospital—there is nothing wrong again to take the child with you because we don’t expect that you would go to the hospital and leave the child at home alone. So in a case like that then there will be exception.”