Gail Alexan­der

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has wel­comed the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to hu­man traf­fick­ing. How­ev­er, she al­so wants the po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate me­dia hous­es that may be en­abling hu­man traf­fick­ing through es­cort ser­vice ads, as well as the pae­dophile al­le­ga­tions con­tained in the Robert Sab­ga and Ju­dith Jones re­ports on chil­dren’s homes.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so wants the po­lice to in­ter­view Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

The po­lice probe was launched af­ter Row­ley was asked in Par­lia­ment about claims in the US State De­part­ment’s Traf­fick­ing in Per­son’s Re­port that his ad­min­is­tra­tion didn’t take ac­tion against se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials al­leged be in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing.

Row­ley said his ad­min­is­tra­tion in­ves­ti­gat­ed the claim and found it in­volved a cur­rent Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment who is “not on the Gov­ern­ment side.” His state­ment was sup­port­ed by for­mer UNC stal­wart Dr De­vant Ma­haraj who was lat­er chal­lenged by the op­po­si­tion par­ty’s deputy leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and oth­ers.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “I con­demn hu­man traf­fick­ing as a vile scourge and evil in our so­ci­ety and all those who en­able it should be pros­e­cut­ed to the fullest ex­tent of the law.

“In this re­gard, the UNC wel­comes the in­ves­ti­ga­tion an­nounced by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the TTPS in­to hu­man traf­fick­ing by ‘se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials’ as iden­ti­fied in the US re­ports. Hope­ful­ly, the Counter-Traf­fick­ing Unit, which was formed in 2013 by my UNC gov­ern­ment, can con­tribute to this in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said the US re­port had been pub­licly raised by the UNC since last Ju­ly.

“It is puz­zling why this im­por­tant in­ves­ti­ga­tion is on­ly now to be start­ed. Ever since ‘se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials’ were iden­ti­fied by the US State De­part­ment as be­ing in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing, the UNC has sought to get an­swers in the Par­lia­ment on what was be­ing done about this,” she said.

“The Row­ley Gov­ern­ment sat on its hands and did noth­ing. Its in­ac­tion caused Trinidad and To­ba­go to be dis­grace­ful­ly down­grad­ed to the in­ter­na­tion­al Tier 2 Watch List for hu­man traf­fick­ing.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said when Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles brought up the mat­ter again last Fri­day in Par­lia­ment, the Prime Min­is­ter “at­tempt­ed a grand dis­trac­tion by point­ing fin­gers scan­dalous­ly and main­tain­ing that he wasn’t re­spon­si­ble for tak­ing the re­quired ac­tion.”

She added: “I call on every­one who’s mak­ing al­le­ga­tions to now pro­vide doc­u­ment­ed ev­i­dence to the TTPS to sup­port the al­le­ga­tions they’ve made. The time for hearsay and mau­vais langue is over.

“I re­it­er­ate MP Charles’ call for the CoP to in­ter­view Kei­th Row­ley first and fore­most since (Row­ley) start­ed the furore when he claimed in Par­lia­ment to have con­duct­ed wide-rang­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions on the mat­ter. We need the fac­tu­al ba­sis of the in­for­ma­tion he sup­plied last Fri­day.

“I call on the TTPS to al­so in­ves­ti­gate whether ad­ver­tis­ing in the dai­ly news­pa­pers via ads for es­cort and oth­er per­son­al ser­vices may amount to en­abling hu­man traf­fick­ing. It’s amaz­ing that some me­dia con­tin­ue to pon­tif­i­cate against hu­man traf­fick­ing at the front of their news­pa­pers, whilst in the back in their clas­si­fied ads sec­tion, they may be ac­tive­ly en­abling hu­man traf­fick­ing.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar gave ex­am­ples of clas­si­fied ads car­ried in two dai­ly news­pa­pers re­cent­ly.

She added: “Fur­ther, I call on the CoP and the TTPS to al­so ex­tend these in­ves­ti­ga­tions to in­clude the pae­dophile al­le­ga­tions made in the Sab­ga and Ju­dith Jones re­ports.”

The 1997 re­port by Dr Robert Sag­ba’s team un­earthed cas­es of young vic­tims at chil­dren’s homes be­ing groomed for the sex­u­al sat­is­fac­tion of politi­cians, busi­ness peo­ple and staff.

The 2022 re­port of the Ju­dith Jones team al­so cit­ed a range of prob­lems at chil­dren’s homes, in­clud­ing drug trans­ac­tions and the rape of mi­nors.