Kevon Felmine

While the US De­part­ment of State has la­belled T&T as a des­ti­na­tion for the il­le­gal sex trade, lo­cal im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials un­cov­ered a mas­sive pros­ti­tu­tion ring on Fri­day night and ar­rest­ed 78 for­eign na­tion­als and three lo­cals.

Around 9.30 pm, on Fri­day night, im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials, along with San Fer­nan­do CID of­fi­cers, swooped down on the pop­u­lar Clas­sic Sea­men Ho­tel at Eliz­a­beth Street, Mara­bel­la, where they found 76 scant­i­ly dressed women, al­leged­ly so­lic­it­ing clients. Sev­er­al of the women were dis­cov­ered in rooms on the low­er floor of the es­tab­lish­ment, while oth­ers were found in the lob­by and bar area, some of whom were tend­ing to three Chi­nese na­tion­als.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the women ran at the sight of of­fi­cers but were eas­i­ly cap­tured as the premis­es is sur­round­ed by high walls topped by barbed wire. The of­fi­cers ques­tioned the man­ag­er and as­sis­tant man­ag­er and the two were ar­rest­ed and charged with man­ag­ing a broth­el un­der Sec­tion 22 of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act (1984).

The women–72 of whom were Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic na­tion­als, two Ja­maicans, one Guyanese and a Columbian–were al­so ar­rest­ed and charged along with the Chi­nese na­tion­als for im­mi­gra­tion of­fences and so­lic­it­ing. They are ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore a San Fer­nan­do mag­is­trate to­mor­row.

Hu­man Traf­fick­ing re­port

In 2012, the US De­part­ment of State's Hu­man Traf­fick­ing Re­port said that T&T was "a des­ti­na­tion, source and tran­sit coun­try for adults and chil­dren sub­ject­ed to sex traf­fick­ing, and adults sub­ject­ed to forced labour."

The re­ports stat­ed that women and girls are traf­ficked from South Amer­i­ca and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and are sent to work at lo­cal broth­els and clubs while lo­cal men lure lo­cal teenagers in­to im­moral acts for shel­ter and ma­te­ri­als goods. The re­port went on to say that there were com­pa­nies in T&T hold­ing for­eign­ers' pass­ports, which was a com­mon in­di­ca­tor of hu­man traf­fick­ing.

How­ev­er, the US De­part­ment of State said that while Gov­ern­ment did not ful­ly com­ply with the min­i­mum stan­dard for the erad­i­ca­tion of the trade, they were mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant ef­forts.

In 2011, for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Brigadier John Sandy said, "The Gov­ern­ment, through the Po­lice Ser­vice and in­tel­li­gence agen­cies, will be pay­ing greater at­ten­tion to es­tab­lish­ments that sur­rep­ti­tious­ly op­er­ate as broth­els." He made the an­nounce­ment while speak­ing on the Hu­man Traf­fick­ing Bill in the Sen­ate.

De­spite po­lice crack­down on sev­er­al al­leged broth­els in South and Cen­tral over the past year, a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer said the trade con­tin­ues to flour­ish.