T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, ASP Gideon Dick­son, says there should be an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to re­ports that a po­lice of­fi­cer was in­volved in the pros­ti­tu­tion of a 16-year-old girl.

He al­so wants of­fi­cers in the Elec­tron­ic Mon­i­tor­ing Unit to be held ac­count­able for con­vict­ed hu­man traf­fick­er An­tho­ny Smith slip­ping out of his an­kle bracelet and van­ish­ing.

How­ev­er, the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) said it has not yet re­ceived any in­struc­tions to start such a probe.

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue, PSB head, Se­nior Supt Suzette Mar­tin, said, “Based on the in­for­ma­tion I got in the news, the Ju­di­cia­ry for­ward­ed some­thing to the Com­mis­sion­er but be­cause she has a unit that deals specif­i­cal­ly with gen­der, they can al­so send it there, but we have not re­ceived any doc­u­ment.”

At­tempts to con­tact the Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence Unit (GB­VU) were un­suc­cess­ful.

Asked if there was any in­de­pen­dent ac­tion the PSB could un­der­take, Mar­tin said, “I can find out where it (a doc­u­ment sent to the Com­mis­sion­er by the Ju­di­cia­ry) is, but nor­mal­ly they would as­sign it to who they would like to do the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

Ef­forts were al­so made to get a com­ment from Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds on the in­volve­ment of a mem­ber of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in the case.

It was the last ques­tion raised at the me­dia brief­ing last Fri­day, when it was an­nounced Smith had been con­vict­ed and gone miss­ing.

Guardian Me­dia asked Woman Po­lice Cor­po­ral Dana-Marie Mar­shall if there was any ev­i­dence that mem­bers of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty fre­quent­ed the place of ill re­pute where the girl was found. How­ev­er, it was Hinds who an­swered.

“In re­la­tion to the mat­ter, let me an­swer that, let me, as a non-po­lice an­swer that. In re­la­tion to this mat­ter, there has been no such re­port. All that has been re­port­ed in this mat­ter we have out­lined to you in great de­tail,” Hinds said con­fi­dent­ly.

Hours lat­er in a me­dia re­lease, the Ju­di­cia­ry said it was stat­ed that “the 16-year-old was re­quired to con­tin­ue sex work while she at­tend­ed part-time school. She tes­ti­fied that her last client was a po­lice of­fi­cer.”

Both Hinds and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher did not re­spond to ques­tions yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, Dick­son said there should be a probe if, in fact, a po­lice of­fi­cer was in­volved in the case.

“We note what was stat­ed by the Ju­di­cia­ry, we al­so note com­ments made from se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cials in re­la­tion to the mat­ter and as such, if the facts are what they say it is, it means that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion ought to be tak­ing place. Once an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is tak­ing place, be it with our Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit or any oth­er unit as­cribed with that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, I am cer­tain that our or­gan­i­sa­tion will leave no stones un­turned to bring the per­pe­tra­tor be­fore jus­tice for them to an­swer ac­cord­ing­ly,” Dick­son said.

How­ev­er, he be­lieves the Elec­tron­ic Mon­i­tor­ing Unit should al­so face pub­lic scruti­ny, giv­en that they were tasked with keep­ing track of Smith.

“The as­so­ci­a­tion would like to say that it is cause for con­cern, and we need to delve deep­er in­to that. That is two and we have sev­er­al peo­ple who are out right now get­ting bail for mur­der, so when they get bail for mur­der and you put these mon­i­tors on them, what are you say­ing to the law-abid­ing (cit­i­zens)? Monies are be­ing spent to en­sure this form of tech­nol­o­gy is in place,” Dick­son said.

Ques­tions were al­so sent to the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go in light of the vic­tim’s tes­ti­mo­ny but there was no im­me­di­ate re­sponse.

‘Law en­force­ment in­volve­ment com­mon’

Mean­while, for­mer Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) di­rec­tor Karen Wheel­er said po­lice in­volve­ment in these crimes is un­for­tu­nate­ly quite com­mon.

“The unit would have charged po­lice for hu­man traf­fick­ing over the years. Sev­er­al po­lice of­fi­cers would have been back in 2019, 2020 and be­yond if you go back in­to the TIP (Traf­fick­ing in Per­son) re­ports,” Wheel­er said.

That 2022 re­port put out by the Unit­ed States stat­ed that “the coun­try’s over­sight bod­ies, and out­side ob­servers con­sis­tent­ly al­leged that law en­force­ment and se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials con­tin­ued to be com­plic­it in traf­fick­ing. A study fund­ed by a for­eign or­gan­i­sa­tion and con­duct­ed by a for­eign com­pa­ny re­port­ed that ten per cent of the po­lice force was un­der ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion for mis­con­duct, in­clud­ing traf­fick­ing”.

Wheel­er said the first per­son charged with hu­man traf­fick­ing in March of 2013 was a po­lice of­fi­cer.

“So, po­lice of­fi­cers be­ing in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go is noth­ing new, it’s noth­ing se­cret, it’s pub­licly known and the courts al­so have cas­es be­fore them where they are try­ing po­lice of­fi­cers. Those cas­es haven’t reached tri­al as yet, but they will even­tu­al­ly get there,” Wheel­er said.

She said there was an uptick in these re­ports post-2018, when Venezue­lan mi­gra­tion to this coun­try in­creased ex­po­nen­tial­ly.

She said it is quite con­cern­ing but be­lieves the on­ly way to mean­ing­ful­ly ad­dress this is for a law en­force­ment of­fi­cer to be jailed for such crime.

“They need to set an ex­am­ple for a few of them. The cas­es in­volv­ing the po­lice of­fi­cers, those cas­es need to come to some clo­sure where you get some fi­nal de­ci­sion in the courts con­cern­ing those of­fi­cers and when you see that hap­pen­ing, hope­ful­ly, it will de­ter the oth­ers,” Wheel­er sug­gest­ed.

How­ev­er, she sought to un­der­score it was not on­ly TTPS mem­bers who were in­volved in fa­cil­i­tat­ing hu­man traf­fick­ing.

“You know we tend to put the radar on the po­lice but you’d have to broad­en it to law en­force­ment, you have im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers, oth­er arms of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices... Any­body in the pro­tec­tive ser­vices or work­ing with a gov­ern­ment agency,” Wheel­er said.

In fact, the 2022 TIP not­ed, “Re­ports al­leged com­plic­it Coast Guard of­fi­cials fa­cil­i­tat­ed the en­try of women and girls—some of whom may have been traf­fick­ing vic­tims—from Venezuela in­to the coun­try, and com­plic­it im­mi­gra­tion and cus­toms of­fi­cers then en­sured the women and girls ar­rived and re­ceived en­try. Re­ports al­so al­leged po­lice ac­cept­ed bribes to fa­cil­i­tate trans­porta­tion of po­ten­tial traf­fick­ing vic­tims and col­lud­ed with broth­els, casi­no, and busi­ness own­ers to pro­tect their es­tab­lish­ments from po­lice raids. Ob­servers re­port­ed tip-offs or no­ti­fi­ca­tions pre­ced­ed such raids.”