Shal­iza Has­sanali

One week af­ter tabling the Traf­fick­ing of Per­sons Bill in Par­lia­ment, three na­tion­als of In­dia who came to Trinidad in search of a bet­ter life have come for­ward claim­ing they are vic­tims of a hu­man traf­fick­ing ring.The ring was un­earthed by Man­ju Ver­ma, an In­dia na­tion­al liv­ing in Trinidad.Des­per­ate to get Di­nesh Chand Jatav, 29, Jagdish Mali, 36, and Bab­u­lal Jatav, 29, out of Trinidad, Ver­ma is call­ing on For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan and In­dia Com­mis­sion­er to T&T Malay Mishra for as­sis­tance, stat­ing that this crime was against hu­man­i­ty.

Ver­ma was touched by the men's plight, hav­ing ex­pe­ri­enced a sim­i­lar fate.She is al­so ap­peal­ing to the po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate the Tu­na­puna busi­ness­man be­hind the traf­fick­ing, stat­ing if left unchecked, more for­eign labour­ers would be duped and ex­ploit­ed.Ver­ma said the busi­ness­man was in the habit of seiz­ing pass­ports of for­eign labour­ers as well as ex­ploit­ing, threat­en­ing and abus­ing them.Clean­ing toi­lets were al­so part of their chores.On No­vem­ber 17, 2009, the men along with Ja­mana Lal of Jaipur, a pover­ty-strick­en dis­trict in In­dia came to Trinidad.

An ad­ver­tise­ment in one of In­dia's news­pa­pers seek­ing skilled males in gran­ite and mar­ble fab­ri­ca­tion for three years in Trinidad was what lured the men to ap­ply for the po­si­tion.Af­ter be­ing screened, the men were ac­cept­ed and of­fered $2,700 (TT) month­ly, plus a $3,500 apart­ment which the busi­ness­man promised to pay for un­til their con­tract of three of the four men ex­pired in 2012.The men were each asked to pay a bond of $30,000 ru­pees, equiv­a­lent to $5,000 (TT), which they were loaned in In­dia and had to re­pay with in­ter­est dur­ing a six-month pe­ri­od up­on tak­ing up the jobs.Up­on com­ple­tion of the job, the busi­ness­man promised to re­pay the bond in In­dia.

In search of a bet­ter life...

plead­ing to go home

"These guys saw this as an op­por­tu­ni­ty for a bet­ter life, hav­ing strug­gled in In­dia for years and came here," said Ver­ma, who trans­lat­ed for the men who spoke Hin­di at their Ma­coya apart­ment on Fri­day."But they were duped and ex­ploit­ed for the past 17 months in a hu­man traf­fick­ing ring."As a re­sult of their hor­ri­ble ex­pe­ri­ences, the men are plead­ing to go home."We are un­hap­py here. We just want to re­unite with our fam­i­lies who are wor­ried sick," said Mali.Mali said what hap­pened to them was noth­ing short of hu­man traf­fick­ing.

Ver­ma said up­on the men's ar­rival in Trinidad, their pass­ports were seized and they had to work from sun­rise to sun­set every day, in­stalling gran­ite and mar­ble coun­ter­tops at var­i­ous es­tab­lish­ments, main­ly ho­tels and restau­rants.Of the $2,700 month­ly salary they each col­lect­ed, Ver­ma said the men sent 70 per cent of their pay to their wives, chil­dren and fam­i­lies, keep­ing the re­main­ing 30 per cent to buy food, cloth­ing and toi­letries."Most times they could bare­ly buy food."In their apart­ment, Mali point­ed to a bare kitchen cup­board and sheet­less beds which they sleep on.

In­still­ing fear in them

When­ev­er they had to send a mon­ey trans­fer to In­dia, they would be giv­en their pass­ports, which had to be sur­ren­dered to the busi­ness­man af­ter the trans­ac­tion.

Ram­bachan: We will look in­to it

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan, in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, said the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of get­ting the men back home lies in the hands of the High Com­mis­sion.Ram­bachan said he would ask Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sub­has Pan­day, who is re­spon­si­ble for im­mi­gra­tion, to look in­to the mat­ter."Once I get a feed­back from both min­is­ters I will talk to Mishra."