RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

More than two dozen lo­cal po­lice of­fi­cers are cur­rent­ly un­der watch by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau hav­ing been im­pli­cat­ed in an in­trin­sic hu­man traf­fick­ing ring op­er­at­ing be­tween Venezuela and Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tions are oc­cur­ring even as po­lice are prob­ing the re­cent il­le­gal en­try of scores of Venezue­lans in­to T&T. Guardian Me­dia was told sur­veil­lance drones and a new­ly-formed Po­lice Coastal Unit will come on stream over the next month to crack down on hu­man traf­fick­ing and smug­gling in the south­west­ern penin­su­la.

The traf­fick­ing net­work, which is sup­port­ed and op­er­at­ed by cor­rupt lo­cal law en­force­ment of­fi­cers, has been ex­posed in a 2019 Cari­com Study on Hu­man Traf­fick­ing con­duct­ed by Dr Jus­tine Pierre.

Re­li­able sources say the state-of-the-art drones will pa­trol a 10-mile ex­panse of porous coast­line along the penin­su­la where Venezue­lan mi­grants, live­stock, hon­ey, guns and drugs are brought in. Every ves­sel com­ing in­to ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters will be mon­i­tored and it will work in tan­dem with in­creased ac­tiv­i­ty by the T&T Coast Guard.

A source who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said the traf­fick­ers of­ten pay po­lice of­fi­cers to trans­port their il­le­gal hu­man car­go. 

“We have in­for­mants who give us in­for­ma­tion as to how the op­er­a­tion is set up. The lo­cal po­lice of­fi­cers use po­lice equip­ment to en­sure the safe trav­el of the women and the drugs and guns. This is the in­for­ma­tion we have but the net­work is so well set up that look­outs are placed along the way and they are tipped off,” the source said.

“There are safe spots for the mi­grant women to hide un­til the trans­porta­tion comes to get them.”

In some cas­es, po­lice of­fi­cers go to the spe­cif­ic drop off points to over­see the process.

A se­nior law en­force­ment of­fi­cial said over the past year poly­graph tests have been done on sus­pect­ed cor­rupt South West­ern Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers. Those who re­fused to do the tests were trans­ferred out of the di­vi­sion, the source said, adding drugs busts in re­cent times were done by of­fi­cers out­side the di­vi­sion.

Dr Justine Pierre

“In one case, al­most all the of­fi­cers from a po­lice sta­tion in south Trinidad re­fused to take the poly­graph tests. Be­cause the tests are not tan­gi­ble proof of cor­rup­tion, none of the of­fi­cers has been charged even though there have been state­ments tak­en from in­for­mants about their il­le­gal con­duct,” the source re­vealed.

Dur­ing an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Dr Pierre called for a col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach to deal with hu­man traf­fick­ing, say­ing no coun­try could deal with it alone. He said he had gath­ered da­ta on the num­ber of women who left Venezuela to search for a bet­ter life in Trinidad.

He said hu­man traf­fick­ers in Venezuela, as well as an­ti-traf­fick­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions in Venezuela, pro­vid­ed in­for­ma­tion for his study that was col­lab­o­rat­ed with in­for­ma­tion ob­tained from peo­ple in T&T.

“We spoke to the boat op­er­a­tors, we spoke to the Venezue­lan mil­i­tary forces, we told them that we were not po­lice or any­one in au­thor­i­ty. Peo­ple are gen­er­al­ly not will­ing to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion to the po­lice or peo­ple in pub­lic po­si­tions. Every­one is will­ing to leave their lega­cy and many peo­ple do not be­lieve that what they are do­ing is wrong,” Pierre said. 

Asked why no law en­force­ment of­fi­cer has yet been ar­rest­ed, Pierre said, “The TTPS is do­ing their best. How­ev­er, they do not have enough re­sources.”

He said T&T should em­bark on na­tion­al re­search in­to hu­man traf­fick­ing.

“The hu­man traf­fick­ing in­dus­try in T&T is well or­gan­ised and high­ly fund­ed. T&T is al­so a tran­sit coun­try. The de­mand for sex and pros­ti­tu­tion in T&T is very high. A na­tion­al hu­man traf­fick­ing sur­vey needs to be done ur­gent­ly,” Pierre said.

Asked to make rec­om­men­da­tions on how the scourge should be tack­led, Pierre said, “Pub­lic sen­si­ti­sa­tion, pub­lic aware­ness and pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion. The clients of pros­ti­tutes and hu­man traf­fick­ing need to know that what they are do­ing is wrong.”

He added, “It must be a co­or­di­nat­ed ef­fort all across the re­gion. Hu­man traf­fick­ing al­go­rithms must be de­vel­oped to pre­dict ac­tiv­i­ties and shared them with all the coun­tries. Da­ta shar­ing needs to be pub­licly avail­able to all. In­for­ma­tion about hu­man traf­fick­ing in the Caribbean is po­lit­i­cal and some of the gov­ern­ments do not want to share that in­for­ma­tion with the pub­lic,” he said, adding the Ja­maican gov­ern­ment has done a great job in com­bat­ing hu­man traf­fick­ing.