The Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is equip­ping Coast Guard of­fi­cers with the nec­es­sary ex­per­tise for ef­fec­tive screen­ing for hu­man traf­fick­ing in­di­ca­tors, in a se­ries of train­ing pro­grammes on the is­sue.

An of­fi­cial re­lease from the Min­istry re­ports that the CTU be­gan first phase of the train­ing on Wednes­day 19 Jan­u­ary 2022.  That four-day ses­sion was con­duct­ed at the He­li­port Base, Ch­aguara­mas, end­ing on Thurs­day 27 Jan­u­ary 2022.  

The train­ing pro­vid­ed four dif­fer­ent groups of 20 spe­cial­ly iden­ti­fied bor­der of­fi­cers with the nec­es­sary tools to con­duct pre­lim­i­nary screen­ing of na­tion­als and non-na­tion­als for in­di­ca­tors of hu­man traf­fick­ing, in an ef­fort to pre­vent and sup­press hu­man traf­fick­ing ac­tiv­i­ties at the coun­try’s sea bor­ders.

Par­tic­i­pants de­scribed the train­ing as be­ing “quite rel­e­vant to their cur­rent du­ties”.

Train­ing fa­cil­i­ta­tors were Alana Wheel­er, Di­rec­tor of the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit; Michael Veronique, Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice, Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice; and Za­heer Ali, Le­gal Of­fi­cer, Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

At the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the train­ing pro­gramme, Di­rec­tor Wheel­er en­cour­aged par­tic­i­pants to make the most of this train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty, as the na­ture of their job in­volves in­ter­ac­tion with mi­grants.

“Every mi­grant you come in­to con­tact with—whether or not a vic­tim of traf­fick­ing—you have the abil­i­ty to change their lives for bet­ter or for worse. By the end of this train­ing, we hope that you choose to change their lives for bet­ter. The choice is yours,” she said.

Di­rec­tor Wheel­er al­so re­it­er­at­ed the Min­istry’s com­mit­ment to con­tin­ue, through the CTU, the pre­ven­tion and coun­ter­act­ing of hu­man traf­fick­ing in all its forms.

To date, the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit has de­liv­ered train­ing to over 300 Coast Guard of­fi­cers, with plans to con­tin­ue train­ing ses­sions with more groups in the up­com­ing weeks.