RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A re­port con­duct­ed by hu­man traf­fick­ing re­searcher Dr Jus­tine Pierre sug­gests as many as 17,136 women from five re­gions in Venezuela went miss­ing and were pos­si­bly traf­ficked in 2019 and may have been vic­tims of an elab­o­rate ring. Hun­dreds of them end­ed up in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Some of the vic­tims are teenagers who were kid­napped from ar­eas in­clud­ing Tu­cu­pi­ta, Delta Amacuro, Ped­er­nales, Casacoima and An­to­nia Di­az, the study by Pierre has re­vealed.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Pierre said boat op­er­a­tors who bring the women to T&T keep ex­cel­lent records and the sta­tis­tics were al­so com­piled based on in­ter­views with rel­a­tives of miss­ing per­sons, vic­tims, traf­fick­ers and da­ta from the In­sti­tu­to Na­cional de Es­tadís­ti­ca in Venezuela.

Call­ing for the ex­po­sure of traf­fick­ers and pub­lic aware­ness to end the scourge, Pierre said his re­search showed that the epi­cen­tres of hu­man traf­fick­ing in the re­gion were Venezuela, Haiti, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Nicaragua and T&T.

Be­cause of its so­cio-eco­nom­ic cri­sis, Venezuela has emerged as the great­est sup­pli­er of traf­fick­ing vic­tims to T&T, Cana­da and the Unit­ed States, Pierre added.

“In­ter­views con­duct­ed with traf­fick­ers re­vealed that the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion in Trinidad seemed to pre­fer women from Venezuela who were younger and were of a lighter com­plex­ion. These women at­tract­ed a high­er pre­mi­um and fi­nan­cial re­turn. Our re­search showed that many women are sold as sex slaves, first, to crim­i­nal el­e­ments in T&T, due to the high de­mand, and then to crim­i­nal el­e­ments in oth­er coun­tries,” Pierre said.

Over the past eight years, traf­fick­ing has in­creased tremen­dous­ly from Delta Amacuro and Tu­cu­pi­ta.

In his 2019 study on hu­man traf­fick­ing, Pierre re­vealed that be­tween 80,000 and 120,000 per­sons are traf­ficked or smug­gled through the Caribbean an­nu­al­ly. He ex­plained in Tu­cu­pi­ta, a to­tal of 932 were miss­ing or were traf­ficked in 2011 but by 2019, this rose to 7,250. In the Delta Amacuro area, 1,042 peo­ple were miss­ing in 2011 but by 2019 it was 8,568. 

Pierre said more need­ed to be done to crack­down on hu­man traf­fick­ing. This in­clud­ed pro­fil­ing hu­man traf­fick­ers and ed­u­cat­ing the pop­u­la­tion about the hu­man traf­fick­ing ring. Those who buy in­to pros­ti­tu­tion or any part of the sex trade should be aware of the im­pact of ex­ploita­tion, he said. 

His rec­om­men­da­tions come even as the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice yes­ter­day said 33 more Venezue­lans were de­tained in the South-West­ern and To­ba­go Di­vi­sions dur­ing an­ti-crime ex­er­cis­es.

In Erin, South-West­ern Task Force of­fi­cers went to Ayres Road, Los Iros beach, where they saw peo­ple dis­em­bark­ing a ves­sel. Some 15 Venezue­lans were de­tained and tak­en to the Siparia Health Fa­cil­i­ty where they were med­ical­ly ex­am­ined and lat­er tak­en to the Ch­aguara­mas He­li­port for a 14-day quar­an­tine.

In To­ba­go, of­fi­cers from the Crown Point Po­lice Sta­tion, Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tion De­part­ment and Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment went to guest hous­es at Gaskin Bay Road and Al­fred Cres­cent in Bon Ac­cord, where 18 il­le­gal Venezue­lans were de­tained. They were tak­en to the Crown Point Po­lice Sta­tion to be processed by the Im­mi­gra­tion de­part­ment. The To­ba­go ex­er­cise was co­or­di­nat­ed by Snr Supt Ster­ling Roberts, spear­head­ed by In­sp Camp­bell and su­per­vised by W/SGT Ster­ling.

Last month, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said the crim­i­nal of­fence of hu­man traf­fick­ing is to be widened to in­clude lo­cal cit­i­zens trans­port­ing and har­bour­ing il­le­gal aliens.

In Feb­ru­ary, a po­lice of­fi­cer was al­so among three held for traf­fick­ing and a po­lice source said more than two dozen of­fi­cers are now be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed for links with the traf­fick­ing trade. Next month, drones and a new Po­lice Coastal Unit will be launched to as­sist in crack­ing down on the trade.