RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Renowned mi­gra­tion and hu­man traf­fick­ing ex­pert, Dr Jus­tine Pierre, who led a team con­duct­ing the Car­i­fo­rum/Cari­com Hu­man Traf­fick­ing re­search project in 2019, says no­body from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment con­tact­ed his team to dis­cuss the hu­man traf­fick­ing find­ings af­ter it was re­leased.

The re­port lists places where hu­man traf­fick­ing oc­curred, the num­ber of per­sons in­volved in the trade, and the known hu­man traf­fick­ing routes in the mas­sive hu­man traf­fick­ing ring.

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Dr Pierre said the re­port was giv­en to T&T’s Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty up­on com­ple­tion.

He said most re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions, such as the US Em­bassy of­fi­cials in T&T, the Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion in Port-of-Spain, the British High Com­mis­sion in T&T, the Unit­ed States De­part­ment, the gov­ern­ment of Grena­da, the Ja­maican Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, and many oth­er of­fi­cials and news or­gan­i­sa­tions, such as In­sight Crime, had reached out him for in­for­ma­tion back then.

How­ev­er, he said no one from the T&T Gov­ern­ment had of­fi­cial­ly reached out to in­quire about the study.

He not­ed, how­ev­er, that the on­ly T&T of­fi­cial who reached out af­ter his re­port was com­plet­ed was the for­mer di­rec­tor of the T&T Counter-Traf­fick­ing Unit, Al­lana Wheel­er.

“We did the Hu­man Traf­fick­ing Study. We went down to Trinidad and con­duct­ed the case study. We got in touch with 29 sex work­ers. We gave them cell phones and al­lowed them to go in­to the com­mu­ni­ty, and we ob­served them get­ting clients. We record­ed the geospa­tial da­ta, bar codes, and we in­ter­viewed some of the traf­fick­ers”, he re­vealed.

He added: “We knew the traf­fick­ers, their routes, how they op­er­ate, and where they meet, and even though we can­not dis­close who they are due to con­fi­den­tial arrange­ments, we can pro­vide as­sis­tance to the Gov­ern­ment if they are in­ter­est­ed in speak­ing with us.”

The da­ta gath­ered by Dr Pierre and his team re­vealed that thou­sands of peo­ple were traf­ficked or smug­gled through the Caribbean an­nu­al­ly in the pre-pan­dem­ic pe­ri­od.

Dr Pierre told Guardian Me­dia: “We do not know the rea­son why no one had ever tak­en the time to dis­cuss such an im­por­tant project with us.”

Dr Pierre’s rev­e­la­tion comes even as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher has or­dered a probe in­to the al­le­ga­tions swirling in pub­lic over a UNC Par­lia­men­tar­i­an’s al­leged in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing, which was raised in a US State De­part­ment Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons re­port in 2020.

Asked whether he be­lieved this was a cov­er-up in his own sit­u­a­tion, Dr Pierre re­spond­ed: “I don’t want to im­pli­cate the gov­ern­ment, I do not have enough da­ta to make such a state­ment. I don’t know if it is a cov­er-up, but it is def­i­nite­ly strange.

He added, “You see, we are in the field, we are re­searchers, and from my ex­pe­ri­ence, about 80 per cent of the peo­ple who are in the hu­man traf­fick­ing pre­ven­tion in­dus­try have nev­er spo­ken to a hu­man traf­fick­er, re­al­ly.”

He fur­ther ex­plained: “They don’t know how the in­dus­try works be­cause most hu­man traf­fick­ers have no crim­i­nal record. They are or­di­nary peo­ple on the street. But they have a great ap­petite for mon­ey and sex, it’s psy­cho­log­i­cal and it is an easy way to make mon­ey be­cause it has such a low ap­pre­hen­sion rate, and the de­mand is so high.”

Asked whether he be­lieved there was enough ev­i­dence in the Car­i­fo­rum/Cari­com Hu­man Traf­fick­ing re­search project to lead to the pros­e­cu­tion of hu­man traf­fick­ers, Dr Pierre said: “I think we have enough ev­i­dence to pros­e­cute traf­fick­ers. How­ev­er, I am not a lawyer, so I may not be the best per­son to an­swer that ques­tion. I be­lieve that the T&T Gov­ern­ment should con­sult with the DPP of­fice in Ja­maica; they re­cent­ly had some­one con­vict­ed.”

He al­so urged the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to reach out to his team this time around.

“We pro­vid­ed the de­tails; there­fore, they can con­tact us if they want. We have most of the da­ta, we got it from the sex work­ers, and most of these places are still in op­er­a­tion. That is what we are say­ing, but no one from the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty of­fice has con­tact­ed us,” he said.

Stu­art: I nev­er saw Cari­com re­port

For­mer Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young says the find­ings of the Car­i­fo­rum/Cari­com Hu­man Traf­fick­ing re­search project in 2019 were nev­er brought to his at­ten­tion.

How­ev­er, he is deny­ing noth­ing was done to stop hu­man traf­fick­ing in T&T un­der his tenure.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day as al­le­ga­tions con­tin­ued to swirl around an Op­po­si­tion mem­ber’s in­volve­ment in hu­man traf­fick­ing, Young said there were a num­ber of op­er­a­tions con­duct­ed by the TTPS, Im­mi­gra­tion and the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit that led to per­sons, in­clud­ing cor­rupt of­fi­cials be­ing charged.

He al­so de­nied law en­force­ment of­fi­cers who were im­pli­cat­ed in the il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ty were not ap­pre­hend­ed.

“Your as­sump­tion that in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to cor­rupt po­lice of­fi­cers and im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials was not pur­sued is wrong,” Young said.

“The record would re­flect that po­lice of­fi­cers and oth­ers were charged for be­ing in­volved in crimes as­so­ci­at­ed with hu­man traf­fick­ing dur­ing my tenure as Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.”

Asked what the chal­lenges in pros­e­cut­ing cor­rupt pub­lic of­fi­cials were, in­clud­ing politi­cians, Young re­spond­ed: “For the record, I did not see the re­port to which you re­fer, so I am not in a po­si­tion to com­ment on any such re­port.”

But lead hu­man traf­fick­ing ex­pert and re­searcher Dr Jus­tine Pierre says while the T&T Gov­ern­ment was not their client, a copy of the Car­i­fo­rum/Cari­com Hu­man Traf­fick­ing re­port was sent to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty when the re­search was com­plet­ed.