- NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 13/07/2024 07:27

Human trafficking: Everyone is to blame?

DINESH RAMBALLY MANY CITIZENS have an awareness that TT was moved to Tier 2 status in the recently-issued 2023 US State Department report on human trafficking. This “improvement” might be met with a vague sense of reassurance that things are improving, if marginally. This would be a misleading conclusion. The situation described in that report is horrific. It sketches a thumbnail of wide national complicity in this industry of exploitation. On the positive side, the report notes the Government increased its anti-trafficking activities. A National Task Force Against Trafficking in Persons, an agglomeration of ten agencies and six NGOs, was formed. It has done public education programmes via the media, initiated victim assistance and outreach platforms in Spanish. It had also made efforts to restrict the “commercial sex” trade. But these efforts seem flimsy compared to the realities of dealing with the problem as it exists. TT is now a transit point for vulnerable Venezuelan refugees and migrants en route to Europe, North Africa and elsewhere. Sex trafficking is the most prevalent form of trafficking and includes women and girls from Latin America, the Dominican Republic and Guyana. Trinidadian fishermen are a major trafficking medium between Venezuela and the 132 points of entry on Trinidad’s southern coast. So, along with all its other infamy, Trinidad is a now hub of sex trafficking of women and girls. Trafficking begins online as victims are lured, and the sex trade is carried out in bars, spas and brothels, which are patronised by locals as well as sex-tourists from the US, Canada, China and Europe. The victims include Trinidadian and Tobagonian schoolchildren as well as foreign trafficked children. And all arms of the state – Coast Guard, TTPS and immigration and customs and other officials – are complicit with large international criminal organisations, megabandas, which are involved from the mainland. As far as prosecutions for trafficking go, 22 prosecutions were initiated by the Counter Trafficking Unit (CTU) for 2023, and 26 cases brought in previous years continued. Early last year charges were dismissed against three Trinidadians and one dual national because the police did not locate the victim for testimony. No convictions for 2022 were reported. A large part of this was due to the vulnerability of victims, who are not protected by government, and choose to not testify. These are bare numbers. There is no comparison between the quantum of prosecutions and the scope of the trafficking. However, the efficacy seems about as impressive as the TTPS’s action in every other area – with the detection rate considerably below 20 per cent. The number of victims identified, upon whom prosecutions rely, remains small. The Government has identified 38 trafficking victims and 36 sex-trafficking victims for 2023. The report states that the Government’s victim statistics were unreliable, and NGOs estimated 500 trafficked people for the two-year period addressed by the survey. Especially disturbing is the report’s identification of “corruption and official complicity in trafficking crimes.” The pace of prosecution is slow because “officials, oversight bodies and outside observers consistently alleged law enforcement and security officials colluded with criminal groups complicit in trafficking.” Victims alleged that “police, customs and immigration officials” frequented establishments where “commercial sex” was available and who received “money and sex in exchange for co-ordinating the transport of victims and the protection of sex traffickers.” The CTU reported challenges in inter-agency information sharing, investigation and that “it was unable to follow up tips requests and referrals” due to workload. The cases it did refer for prosecution were hamstrung by an under-resourced Director of Public Prosecutions and systemic prosecution delays. A “fast track” process was proposed, but remained “pending” as of the report’s issuance and two dozen police officers and several “senior government officials” are under investigation. Another part of the report informs us that a study conducted by a foreign company reported that "ten per cent of the police force was under active investigation for misconduct, including trafficking." As bad as all this is, it gets worse. In March 2023, the report tells us, the government opened three shelters for 20 victims each. The shelters were yet another horror story, as foreign children were placed in homes with child criminal offenders, and officials did not investigate any of the reports of abuse, rape and “severe physical and psychological abuse resulting in deaths.” The treatment of adults and asylum seekers was hardly more comforting. The Government claimed it had begun to screen migrants for “trafficking indicators,” but NGOS reported that the Coast Guard did not implement “international best practices” in screening. Some trafficking victims who complained about their treatment subsequently faced arrest and deportation proceedings. The report concludes with recommendations, which can be distilled into one statement: allow the institutions and people whose responsibility it is to deal with the situation to do their jobs. In Trinidad today, such a wish is almost laughable. Yet, like everything else, if we want to fix the situation, we know what to do. It just remains for us to do it. Dinesh Rambally is the MP for Chaguanas West The post Human trafficking: Everyone is to blame? appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.