Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

Joshua.Seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

For the first time in four years, Trinidad and To­ba­go has been up­grad­ed to Tier 2 sta­tus from ‘Tier 2 - Watch List’ in the US De­part­ment of State’s 2024 Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Re­port. Ac­cord­ing to the an­nu­al re­port, which was pub­lished yes­ter­day, while the T&T Gov­ern­ment does not ful­ly meet the min­i­mum stan­dards for elim­i­nat­ing traf­fick­ing, it is mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant ef­forts to do so.

The re­port found that Gov­ern­ment demon­strat­ed over­all in­creas­ing ef­forts com­pared to the pre­vi­ous re­port­ing pe­ri­od, jus­ti­fy­ing an up­grade.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, in a re­lease hours lat­er, ac­knowl­edged the up­grade, of­fer­ing thanks to all stake­hold­ers for their con­tin­ued ef­forts.

“The Min­is­ter gives the sol­id as­sur­ance that the 2024 Re­port will be stud­ied in great de­tail, and the rec­om­men­da­tions vig­or­ous­ly pur­sued, with a view to hav­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­sponse to the sor­did and bru­tal crime of Hu­man Traf­fick­ing, be at all times, con­sis­tent with in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards and best prac­tice,” Hinds said.

The 2022 re­port al­leged the in­volve­ment of a se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial in hu­man traf­fick­ing, as the coun­try was placed on a Tier 2 Watch List. It was that in­for­ma­tion that cre­at­ed a furore be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last year, when he re­vealed that based on in­ves­ti­ga­tions, the of­fi­cial was not a sit­ting Gov­ern­ment min­is­ter but some­one in the Op­po­si­tion.

The US State De­part­ment’s Traf­fick­ing Re­port sys­tem has four tiers - Tier 3, Tier 2 Watch List, Tier 2 and Tier 1. Tier 2 means not ful­ly com­pli­ant, but sig­nif­i­cant ef­forts are be­ing made.

The US State De­part­ment found that there were in­creased in­ves­ti­ga­tions and pros­e­cu­tions, ac­knowl­edg­ing T&T had con­vict­ed a hu­man traf­fick­er for the first time in its his­to­ry.

“The Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ued fur­nish­ing and con­struc­tion work on a new tran­si­tion­al shel­ter and a fifth hous­ing unit specif­i­cal­ly for traf­fick­ing vic­tims and pro­vid­ed im­proved quar­ters for the Counter-Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) for im­proved vic­tim in­ter­views with in­creased se­cu­ri­ty. It grant­ed min­is­ter’s per­mits al­low­ing le­gal sta­tus and the abil­i­ty to work to two vic­tims, fi­nalised and im­ple­ment­ed SOPs and ad­di­tion­al vic­tim care pro­to­cols, and in­creased fund­ing for an­ti-traf­fick­ing ef­forts,” the 2024 re­port stat­ed.

How­ev­er, while the re­port not­ed im­prove­ments, it al­so said the Gov­ern­ment did not meet the min­i­mum stan­dards re­quired in sev­er­al key ar­eas.

“Cor­rup­tion and of­fi­cial com­plic­i­ty in traf­fick­ing crimes by some in the po­lice and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices, in­clud­ing at more se­nior lev­els, re­mained sig­nif­i­cant con­cerns, in­hibit­ing law en­force­ment ac­tion. Ef­forts to ad­dress al­leged of­fi­cial com­plic­i­ty in­clud­ing traf­fick­ing of po­ten­tial and ac­tu­al vic­tims at the im­mi­gra­tion de­ten­tion cen­tres re­mained in­ad­e­quate and re­sult­ed in re-traf­fick­ing.

“A lack of ad­e­quate screen­ing of mi­grant work­ers like­ly re­sult­ed in in­ap­pro­pri­ate pe­nal­i­sa­tion, in­clud­ing de­por­ta­tion, of vic­tims of traf­fick­ing for un­law­ful acts com­mit­ted as a di­rect re­sult of be­ing traf­ficked,” the re­port said.

It added, “Vic­tims were not con­sis­tent­ly al­lowed ac­cess to a lawyer of their choice. Vic­tim iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, re­fer­ral, and pro­tec­tive ser­vices, along with in­ter­a­gency co­or­di­na­tion and ev­i­dence-col­lec­tion, while im­proved from the pri­or re­port­ing pe­ri­od, re­mained weak and in­con­sis­tent.

“The Gov­ern­ment did not re­port ef­forts to in­ves­ti­gate a vi­o­lent home in­va­sion of an an­ti-traf­fick­ing NGO rep­re­sen­ta­tive by po­lice, or those pos­ing as po­lice.”

While the ac­tivist was not named, in Jan­u­ary this year, Yese­nia Gon­za­lez spoke about an in­ci­dent at her home, where she al­leged of­fi­cers forcibly en­tered, as­sault­ed her and asked for hu­man traf­fick­ing vic­tims she had res­cued.

Sta­tis­ti­cal­ly, there was a 71% in­crease in the num­ber of sex traf­fick­ing cas­es in­ves­ti­gat­ed in 2023 (77 cas­es) from 2022 (22 cas­es); a 38% in­crease in the num­ber of ini­ti­at­ed pros­e­cu­tions of sex traf­fick­ers un­der the TIP Act and oth­er laws in 2023 (8) from 2022 (5); 12% de­crease in the num­ber of sex traf­fick­ing vic­tims iden­ti­fied in 2023 (34) from 2022 (38); a 54% de­crease in the num­ber of con­tin­ued in­ves­ti­ga­tions of sex traf­fick­ing cas­es from pri­or re­port­ing pe­ri­ods in 2023 (26) from 2022 (12). Thir­ty-four vic­tims were as­sist­ed in 2023, com­pared to 36 in 2022 and 54 in 2021. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Gov­ern­ment spent $1.5 mil­lion on vic­tim as­sis­tance in 2023 - up from $105,000 in 2022 and $120,000 in 2020.

Fish­er­men in­volved; To­ba­go a traf­fick­ing lo­ca­tion

The US State De­part­ment Re­port has not­ed that transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime with links to large crim­i­nal gangs in Latin Amer­i­ca may be be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly in­volved in traf­fick­ing here.

It re­port­ed that re­gion­al traf­fick­ing ex­perts not­ed that transna­tion­al crime or­gan­i­sa­tions op­er­at­ing in Trinidad used the is­land as a tran­sit point for ex­ploit­ing traf­fick­ing vic­tims through­out the Caribbean. 

“Al­though the is­land of Trinidad re­mains the pri­ma­ry hub for most sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go, traf­fick­ers move some vic­tims to the is­land of To­ba­go dur­ing the tourist sea­son…Some Trin­bag­on­ian fish­er­men have turned to mi­grant smug­gling, which serves as traf­fick­ers’ pri­ma­ry method of trans­porta­tion of vic­tims from Venezuela. Traf­fick­ers al­so ex­ploit in­di­vid­u­als from Puer­to Ri­co, the Philip­pines, the Peo­ple’s Re­pub­lic of Chi­na (PRC), In­dia, Nepal, Kenya, and Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines. 

“Mi­grants from the Caribbean re­gion and Asia, par­tic­u­lar­ly those lack­ing le­gal sta­tus, are at risk for forced labour in do­mes­tic ser­vice and the re­tail sec­tor,” the re­port said.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, in an at­tempt to avoid trace­able trans­ac­tions and, in turn, be­ing caught, it was re­port­ed that traf­fick­ers are us­ing cash apps and on­line pay­ments for their op­er­a­tions.

“Traf­fick­ers of­ten of­fer to ei­ther pay for or share the cost of tran­sit with the vic­tims, which is lat­er in­clud­ed as part of debt bondage im­posed up­on them. Vic­tims stat­ed be­ing told up­on ar­rival in the coun­try that they had been “pur­chased” and owed a debt of 20,000 TTD ($3,030),” the US State De­part­ment re­port said.

Venezue­lan chil­dren at risk

An­oth­er key find­ing from the re­port was that un­ac­com­pa­nied or sep­a­rat­ed Venezue­lan chil­dren were at in­creased risk for sex traf­fick­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, many vic­tims land in the south­ern penin­su­la of Trinidad, con­tract­ing taxis to take them in­land to hold­ing lo­ca­tions and traf­fick­ing es­tab­lish­ments like bars, ho­tels, par­lours and clubs.

“Some NGOs con­tin­ue to al­lege en­force­ment and se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials are com­plic­it in sex and labour traf­fick­ing, in­clud­ing of­fi­cials who fa­cil­i­tate the trans­porta­tion of women and girls from Venezuela to the coun­try; im­mi­gra­tion and cus­toms of­fi­cers who en­sure women and girls ar­rive and re­ceive en­try; and mem­bers of the po­lice who ac­cept bribes to fa­cil­i­tate trans­port to hous­es across the coun­try and work with broth­el own­ers to pro­tect their es­tab­lish­ments from law en­force­ment ac­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the south­ern po­lice dis­tricts where most Venezue­lan refugees, mi­grants, and dis­placed per­sons at­tempt to en­ter the coun­try,” the re­port found.