Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has chal­lenged Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to name the UNC MP al­leged­ly in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar called out Row­ley on the is­sue dur­ing Mon­day’s UNC Re­port in Pointe-a-Pierre.

It was the lat­est de­vel­op­ment af­ter UNC MP Rod­ney Charles re­cent­ly asked Row­ley in Par­lia­ment about the US 2022 Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons re­port claim that Gov­ern­ment didn’t take ac­tion against se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials al­leged in 2020 to be in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing.

Row­ley claimed “we” in­ves­ti­gat­ed it and dis­cov­ered it per­tained to a cur­rent non-PNM MP. For­mer UNC Min­is­ters De­vant Ma­haraj and Vas­ant Bharath sup­port­ed Row­ley’s claims. The US Em­bassy urged ac­tion against any of­fi­cials in­volved in traf­fick­ing and the TTPS sub­se­quent­ly in­sti­tut­ed a probe of al­le­ga­tions in the pub­lic do­main, which is on­go­ing.

Dur­ing the UNC’s meet­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed Gov­ern­ment wants to have a spe­cial court for hu­man traf­fick­ing.

“Have you locked up any­body for hu­man traf­fick­ing, you want to have a court. Have you charged any­body? Why don’t you deal with the courts you have now?” she said.

Ac­cus­ing Row­ley of al­leged un­truths, start­ing with Petrotrin’s clo­sure, she added, “And, of course, his lat­est lie is hu­man traf­fick­ing ... He’s un­der pres­sure, so he pelt it across the floor in the Par­lia­ment. Row­ley, if you name man, name the UNC MP who you say is in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing. Name him!

“Be man! And not in Par­lia­ment, come out­side the Par­lia­ment! Bring it on the pave­ment - bring it out, bring it out! We want - if you name man, tell the truth and if you can’t tell the truth, just get out go, go!

Row­ley didn’t re­ply yes­ter­day to T&T Guardian’s What­sApp query on whether he’ll take up the chal­lenge to do so.

At the meet­ing, Charles had urged Gov­ern­ment, “Don’t let this se­ri­ous is­sue of high-rank­ing Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials be­ing in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing be like your emp­ty promis­es of the past. In a nor­mal coun­try, the query I’d asked Dr Row­ley on the traf­fick­ing al­le­ga­tion, a nor­mal Prime Min­is­ter would say what was be­ing done. Who were charged? How many con­vict­ed? What’s be­ing done to stop pub­lic of­fi­cials from be­ing com­plic­it...”

He added, “In­stead of straight an­swers, we got trade­mark Kei­th Row­ley: Minty Al­ley, bar­rack yard, bac­cha­nal. Hu­man traf­fick­ing mustn’t de­scend in­to a tit-for-tat bat­tle!

“What is sad about this is that come Ju­ly, T&T will most like­ly re­main at Tier Two lev­el on the US TIP re­port, as no one will have been con­vict­ed for hu­man traf­fick­ing this year. If any good can come out of this is­sue, it must be that T&T is rid of the scourges of pae­dophil­ia and hu­man traf­fick­ing, in­clud­ing child sex traf­fick­ing.

“I’m not afraid of Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley - I will ask him ques­tion af­ter ques­tion to get to the bot­tom of this traf­fick­ing re­port and who are the fi­nanciers of Bal­isi­er House. I’ll fight him even if I’m stand­ing alone on the pave­ment.”