RHON­DOR DOWLAT 

T&T has been up­grad­ed to Tier 2 in the 2024 Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons (TIP) Re­port, mark­ing sig­nif­i­cant progress in the coun­try’s ef­forts to com­bat hu­man traf­fick­ing. 

How­ev­er, Venezue­lan ac­tivists liv­ing in T&T are not in full agree­ment with the re­port which was re­leased on Mon­day by the US De­part­ment of State, say­ing that more could be done for the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of hu­man traf­fick­ing vic­tims.

Ac­cord­ing to the TIP re­port, the Gov­ern­ment has made strides in in­creas­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions and pros­e­cu­tions, en­act­ing leg­is­la­tion to ex­pe­dite le­gal pro­ceed­ings, and en­hanc­ing sup­port for traf­fick­ing vic­tims. No­tably, a traf­fick­er was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to a sub­stan­tial prison term for the first time, and ef­forts to build new shel­ters and im­prove fa­cil­i­ties for the Counter-Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) have ad­vanced.

De­spite these pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ments, the re­port un­der­scores per­sis­tent chal­lenges. Cor­rup­tion and of­fi­cial com­plic­i­ty with­in the po­lice and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices con­tin­ue to ob­struct law en­force­ment ef­forts. 

Venezue­lan and hu­man rights ac­tivist Sofia Figueroa-Leon high­light­ed these is­sues, ex­press­ing dis­ap­point­ment over the es­cape of a con­vict­ed traf­fick­er, who dis­abled his an­kle bracelet and re­mained at large for months. “That is not a win,” she said. 

“It is shame­ful that, yes, you charge the man, but he es­caped. It is a small is­land. We all know what beach­es these im­mi­grants, refugee asy­lum seek­ers, en­ter from. It is a busi­ness. That is what it has turned in­to, a busi­ness. A lot of peo­ple are prof­it­ing from it. And a lot of peo­ple are turn­ing a blind eye to it,” she added.

The TIP re­port al­so points to in­ad­e­quate screen­ing of mi­grant work­ers, which of­ten re­sults in traf­fick­ing vic­tims be­ing pe­nalised for crimes com­mit­ted un­der duress. It not­ed that al­le­ga­tions of traf­fick­ing at im­mi­gra­tion de­ten­tion cen­tres had not been ad­e­quate­ly ad­dressed, lead­ing to in­ci­dents of re-traf­fick­ing.

In 2023, the CTU in­creased its in­ves­tiga­tive ac­tiv­i­ties, han­dling 77 new sex traf­fick­ing cas­es, up from 22 in 2022. How­ev­er, of­fi­cial com­plic­i­ty re­mains a ma­jor con­cern, with nu­mer­ous po­lice of­fi­cers un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion for their in­volve­ment in traf­fick­ing. While some of­fi­cers have been placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave, no pros­e­cu­tions have re­sult­ed from these in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Vic­tim pro­tec­tion ser­vices saw some im­prove­ments, with the Gov­ern­ment iden­ti­fy­ing and as­sist­ing 34 sex traf­fick­ing vic­tims in 2023. How­ev­er, re­la­tions be­tween the CTU and NGOs re­main strained, the re­port added.

Ac­tivist Yese­nia Gon­za­lez re­port­ed that some vic­tims did not feel safe in the pro­vid­ed shel­ters.

“When the vic­tims make the re­port to the Counter-Traf­fick­ing Unit, they give them a place to pro­tect them and ba­si­cal­ly what the vic­tims told me is that they are in the place where they are ac­tu­al­ly not feel­ing very safe,” she said.

Figueroa-Leon echoed these con­cerns, not­ing that while gov­ern­ment ser­vices for traf­fick­ing vic­tims had im­proved, they were still not ful­ly func­tion­al. “I have re­ceived sev­er­al calls from sev­er­al vic­tims to pro­vide as­sis­tance. And when I asked them, but why? She said, ‘Yes, they have met with me and called me, but they are tak­ing very long to move, to ask, to pro­vide the as­sis­tance need­ed.’ So, we have a long way to go. It is com­mend­able, but we have a very long way to go if we are se­ri­ous about hu­man traf­fick­ing,” she said.

The gov­ern­ment’s pre­ven­tion ef­forts in­clud­ed the es­tab­lish­ment of a Na­tion­al Task Force Against Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons and the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a Na­tion­al Ac­tion Plan. Pub­lic aware­ness cam­paigns and an im­proved 24/7 traf­fick­ing hot­line were al­so part of these ef­forts. 

The Gov­ern­ment pro­vid­ed TT$980,000 (US$145,210) for pre­ven­tion ef­forts in 2023, a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease from TT$50,000 (US$7,390) spent on pub­lic aware­ness and en­gage­ment ef­forts in 2022.

While T&T has made no­table progress in ad­dress­ing hu­man traf­fick­ing, the TIP re­port em­pha­sised the need for con­tin­ued ef­forts to com­bat of­fi­cial com­plic­i­ty, im­prove vic­tim care, and en­hance in­ter­a­gency co-or­di­na­tion.