T&T has the high­est de­mand for sex and pros­ti­tu­tion when com­pared to oth­er Eng­lish-Speak­ing coun­tries in CARI­COM, an ex­ten­sive hu­man traf­fick­ing re­port has re­vealed.

The de­mand for the flesh trade in T&T is es­ti­mat­ed at 81 per cent when com­pared to oth­er Caribbean coun­tries. Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, the de­mand for sex and pros­ti­tu­tion ser­vice is high­est in the bor­ough of Ch­agua­nas.

The eight-month-long in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the il­le­gal Caribbean trade car­ried out be­tween Ju­ly 2019 and Feb­ru­ary 2020 re­vealed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 4,000 vic­tims were traf­ficked in the last four to six years from the Güiria area in Venezuela to T&T, a trade that has been de­scribed as "mod­ern-day slav­ery." A teenage Venezue­lan girl–Omarlys Velásquez–was among the thou­sands smug­gled be­tween the two coun­tries. She was sold for the small sum of US$300 to be used for sex in T&T.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port by hu­man traf­fick­ing re­searcher Dr C Jus­tine Pierre as­sist­ed by Nay­ro­bis Ro­driguez, around 43 per cent of all vic­tims come to T&T from the state of Su­cre.

In­ter­views with traf­fick­ing vic­tims in T&T in­di­cat­ed that some knew each oth­er from Venezuela, had gone to the same school, had played on the same sports team, and most im­por­tant­ly had come from the same re­gion.

The re­searchers said it was ap­par­ent that there is a lack of aware­ness of hu­man traf­fick­ing, es­pe­cial­ly in the rur­al and in­te­ri­or ar­eas of coun­tries in the CAR­I­FO­RUM re­gion, which in­cludes An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, The Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Do­mini­ca, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Grena­da, Guyana, Haiti, Ja­maica, St Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lu­cia, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Suri­name and T&T. It was re­vealed that 63 per cent of the hu­man traf­fick­ing vic­tims came from the rur­al and in­te­ri­or ar­eas.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the re­searchers said, took them "down many dark roads and we in­ter­viewed many dan­ger­ous peo­ple, some of whom be­lieved that what they were do­ing (hu­man traf­fick­ing) was not a crime but just an­oth­er busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty sup­ply­ing a need for their clients."

They in­ter­viewed key stake­hold­ers such as teach­ers, store own­ers, stu­dents, boat cap­tains, broth­el work­ers, the un­em­ployed, the au­thor­i­ties and of­fi­cials, al­leged traf­fick­ers, smug­glers and in­ter­me­di­aries in the hu­man traf­fick­ing 'in­dus­try' that sup­ply vic­tims to T&T, the Caribbean, the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca and Cana­da.

De­spite the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the re­port in­di­cat­ed, hu­man traf­fick­ing con­tin­ued un­abat­ed, "young women who do not know that their des­tiny is pros­ti­tu­tion are still be­ing traf­ficked to T&T."

While in coun­tries such as Ja­maica and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da hu­man traf­fick­ing is on the de­cline due to high pub­lic ad­vo­ca­cy by these gov­ern­ments, Dr Pierre's re­port stat­ed that "the de­mand for sex and pros­ti­tu­tion in T&T is dri­ven by a high­er than usu­al lo­cal con­sump­tion rate, es­pe­cial­ly in the Bor­ough of Ch­agua­nas."

Case of the miss­ing Venezue­lan teenag­er

Their in­ves­ti­ga­tion led them to the fa­ther of the miss­ing Venezue­lan teenag­er who had made a for­mal com­plaint to the au­thor­i­ties al­leg­ing that his daugh­ter had been sold by a net­work that traf­ficked women to T&T.

The young child was 15-year-old Omarlys who drowned in the Bo­ca Dragón Strait, an area of the sea be­tween Venezuela and T&T, on the night she was be­ing trans­port­ed. If she had sur­vived, her fate would have been sealed as a vic­tim of hu­man traf­fick­ing and pros­ti­tu­tion in T&T.

Omarlys was trav­el­ling with her cousin, a 16-year-old girl named Un­y­er­lin, who al­so drowned with her. Both teenagers had been cap­tured by one of the many car­tels op­er­at­ing from Güiria, a small fish­ing town in west­ern Venezuela, the cap­i­tal city of Valdez Mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty in the State of Su­cre.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed that the young girls were aboard a small ves­sel called the 'Jhonaili José' trav­el­ling with 37 oth­er peo­ple who al­so drowned. Small boats are one method used to trans­port traf­fick­ers and the traf­ficked vic­tims out of small vil­lages in­to larg­er ves­sels to be trans­port­ed to Eu­rope, Asia and North Amer­i­ca. On that fate­ful night, the boat was head­ing to Ch­aguara­mas.

The young woman and her cousin left their house that night. Ac­cord­ing to rel­a­tives, Omarlys had told her moth­er that she was go­ing to do home­work at a friend's house. She had no suit­case or any of her be­long­ings with her. She nev­er re­turned home.

As alarm­ing as the num­bers are, it is the in­ti­mate sto­ries that paint a true pic­ture of the dev­as­tat­ing na­ture of the il­le­gal sex trade.

This is Omarlys Velásquez’s sto­ry:

While the heav­i­ly-de­pressed eco­nom­ic state of Venezuela has tak­en away many lib­er­ties, there are still some el­e­ments of fleet­ing free­doms to be found.

At the age of 15, the re­main­ing free­doms of Venezue­lan na­tion­al Omarlys and her 16-year-old cousin were tak­en from them.

Leav­ing their house in Cumaná one night, with­out a suit­case or be­long­ings, Omarlys told her moth­er that she was go­ing to do home­work at a friend’s home.

She nev­er re­turned to her Su­cre State home.

Men, part of the no­to­ri­ous hu­man traf­fick­ing ring from Güiria, ripped them away from their fam­i­lies and their fu­tures.

Await­ing them on the oth­er side of the treach­er­ous Bo­ca Dragón Strait—the Drag­on’s mouth—was a life of pros­ti­tu­tion in the den, T&T.

The Search

With the two teenagers miss­ing, Omarlys’ fa­ther—Omar, his wife and sis­ter be­gan search­ing for them.

There were whis­pers in the neigh­bour­hood that the girls were kid­napped on a street not far from home.

Then Omar came across a Face­book post by a stranger named Maria.

She post­ed the girls’ names, re­port­ing them as miss­ing while trav­el­ling on a boat.

Pock­ets emp­ty and full of de­spair, Omar and his wife trav­elled to Güiria hop­ing to lo­cate their daugh­ter and niece.

“Your daugh­ter was sold for US$300 to a hu­man traf­fick­ing ring,” they were told.

Ac­cord­ing to their find­ings, Omarlys along with four oth­er young women spent a week in a shel­ter op­er­at­ed by the traf­fick­ers. There, they were kept in prepa­ra­tion for their jour­ney by sea to Trinidad.

Des­per­ate­ly con­tin­u­ing his search, Mr Velásquez made a re­port about what he heard to the au­thor­i­ties.

In­stead of as­sur­ances, he got threats.

“They on­ly threat­en us and tell us not to ask any­thing," Omar said in an in­ter­view to hu­man traf­fic re­searcher Dr Pierre.

Omarlys’ fa­ther was in­formed that in Güiria there were peo­ple in high au­thor­i­ty who were linked to the hu­man traf­fick­ing busi­ness.

The traf­fick­ers

A few weeks lat­er, Omarlys’ fa­ther dis­cov­ered the name of the man al­leged­ly re­spon­si­ble for his daugh­ter’s kid­nap­ping, Tico.

With strong ties to Trinidad, Tico was al­leged­ly a mid­dle­man who re­cruit­ed girls for Asian hu­man traf­fick­ing syn­di­cates lo­cat­ed in T&T. He kid­napped, traf­ficked and sold young women. Omarlys was one of many he’d done that to.

The two young women, to­geth­er with three oth­ers, stayed for five days await­ing the trip to T&T at Tico’s house.

Dur­ing in­ter­views with Tico’s sis­ter Elaiza, she de­nied that he was part of a hu­man traf­fick­ing net­work. But, she con­firmed the teens stayed at the home.

"Tico was friends with a woman named Maria who asked him to pro­vide ac­com­mo­da­tion to these five girls who would trav­el to Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she said.

Elaiza in­sist­ed that her broth­er was on­ly do­ing a favour, giv­ing them a place to stay and some food.

She said that the young women who were in his house knew that they would trav­el to Trinidad.

They were seek­ing em­ploy­ment at a spe­cif­ic restau­rant and night­club, she claimed.

Tico trav­elled with the teenagers on the boat des­tined for Ch­aguara­mas. The boat, how­ev­er, nev­er made it to Trinidad. Omarlys and her cousin drowned.

Of the 39 peo­ple who set sail on the Jhonaili José on April 23, 2019, on­ly eight sur­vived the boat ac­ci­dent. Tito was al­so among the list of those who dis­ap­peared.

By all ac­counts, the Venezue­lan state did not par­tic­i­pate in the search. The au­thor­i­ties in Güiria in­sist­ed that they did not have op­ti­mal boats or fu­el to search.

The eight sur­vivors were res­cued by fish­er­men from a near­by town.

To the traf­fick­ers, Omarlys’ death rep­re­sent­ed a failed op­por­tu­ni­ty to cap­i­talise on Trinida­di­an lust.

But she was a lov­ing, obe­di­ent child who loved sports and dreamt of be­com­ing a nurse.

Ar­rests

Fol­low­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Pub­lic Min­istry, nine peo­ple were ar­rest­ed for hu­man traf­fick­ing, in­clud­ing the boat cap­tain who sur­vived the ac­ci­dent and a sports teacher.

The two men helped kid­nap women, hand­ing them over to pros­ti­tu­tion rings in T&T. Two na­tion­al guards were al­so ar­rest­ed.

De­spite pleas from the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies and sev­er­al im­pas­sioned protests, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the traf­fick­ing ring stopped there.

Omarlys’ par­ents nev­er got an­swers about the ac­ci­dent. Omarlys and her cousin’s bod­ies were nev­er found. Noth­ing has changed

More than one year af­ter the ship­wreck off of Güiria, small boats with no safe­ty con­di­tions con­tin­ue to il­le­gal­ly set sail to T&T.

Some make the trip hop­ing to es­cape the suf­fo­cat­ing pover­ty in Venezuela.

How­ev­er, these vic­tims con­tin­ue to be traf­ficked in ex­change for food, med­ical sup­plies, and even house­hold items and mon­ey.