T&T remains on Tier 2 human trafficking watch

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Trinidad and To­ba­go has re­tained its Tier 2 rank­ing in the Unit­ed States De­part­ment of State’s An­nu­al Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Re­port, even as the coun­try’s lat­est na­tion­al re­port re­veals that 30 vic­tims of hu­man traf­fick­ing were iden­ti­fied in 2025, all fe­male and sub­ject­ed to sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion.

The find­ings are con­tained in the 2025 An­nu­al Re­port on Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons in Trinidad and To­ba­go, which was laid in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day.

The re­port high­lights the coun­try’s ef­forts to com­bat hu­man traf­fick­ing through in­ves­ti­ga­tions, vic­tim iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, pro­tec­tion and pros­e­cu­tion, while ac­knowl­edg­ing the chal­lenges that re­main in tack­ling the crime.

Tier 2 sta­tus means Trinidad and To­ba­go does not ful­ly meet the min­i­mum stan­dards for elim­i­nat­ing hu­man traf­fick­ing un­der US leg­is­la­tion but is mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant ef­forts to do so.

The US re­port rec­om­mend­ed that the Gov­ern­ment in­crease in­ves­ti­ga­tions and pros­e­cu­tions of traf­fick­ers, in­clud­ing al­leged­ly com­plic­it of­fi­cials; strength­en the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and pro­tec­tion of vic­tims in vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties; and im­prove ac­cess to ded­i­cat­ed shel­ters.

It al­so called for bet­ter ev­i­dence col­lec­tion, im­proved pros­e­cu­tion out­comes, re­duced ju­di­cial back­logs and mea­sures to en­sure that traf­fick­ing vic­tims are not pun­ished sole­ly for un­law­ful acts com­mit­ted as a di­rect re­sult of their ex­ploita­tion.

The Counter-Traf­fick­ing Unit re­ceived 96 re­ports of sus­pect­ed hu­man traf­fick­ing in 2025, prompt­ing 13 op­er­a­tions across the coun­try.

The re­ports came from sev­er­al sources, in­clud­ing the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion, po­lice sta­tions, con­fi­den­tial in­for­mants, non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions, em­bassies and the Unit’s na­tion­al hot­line.

Dur­ing the op­er­a­tions, 62 peo­ple were found in po­ten­tial­ly ex­ploita­tive sit­u­a­tions.

The CTU sub­se­quent­ly ini­ti­at­ed 62 in­ves­ti­ga­tions and screened all 62 in­di­vid­u­als for in­di­ca­tors of hu­man traf­fick­ing.

Fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­firmed 30 vic­tims.

The re­port ex­plains that iden­ti­fy­ing a vic­tim re­quires in­ves­ti­ga­tors to es­tab­lish three el­e­ments: an ac­tion such as re­cruit­ing, trans­port­ing or har­bour­ing a per­son; the use of force, fraud, de­cep­tion or co­er­cion; and the pur­pose of ex­ploita­tion.

In cas­es in­volv­ing chil­dren, in­ves­ti­ga­tors are not re­quired to es­tab­lish the use of those means.

Venezue­lan women and girls most af­fect­ed

The re­port iden­ti­fies women and girls, par­tic­u­lar­ly mi­grants from Venezuela, as the most vul­ner­a­ble de­mo­graph­ic in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Of the 30 con­firmed vic­tims in 2025, 29 were Venezue­lan na­tion­als, rep­re­sent­ing 97 per cent of the to­tal. The re­main­ing vic­tim was a Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al.

All 30 vic­tims were fe­male and had been sub­ject­ed to sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion.

The re­port found no con­firmed cas­es of forced labour among the vic­tims iden­ti­fied dur­ing the re­port­ing pe­ri­od.

The vic­tims ranged in age from 13 to 36, with 13 mi­nors among those iden­ti­fied.

The largest group con­sist­ed of 11 girls aged be­tween 15 and 17, while sev­en vic­tims were be­tween 18 and 20 years old.

Two vic­tims were aged be­tween 14 and un­der 15, four were be­tween 21 and 23, and the re­main­ing six were spread across age groups from 24 to 36.

Over­all, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 93 per cent of iden­ti­fied vic­tims were un­der the age of 30.

The CTU says traf­fick­ers are in­creas­ing­ly us­ing on­line so­cial me­dia plat­forms and the dark web to re­cruit vic­tims and ad­ver­tise sex­u­al ser­vices.

The re­port al­so high­lights the need for greater proac­tive screen­ing and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of vic­tims, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties.

14 per­sons charged in 2025

On the pros­e­cu­tion front, the CTU de­tained 14 peo­ple for ques­tion­ing in 2025, with all 14 sub­se­quent­ly charged with of­fences un­der the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act and oth­er leg­is­la­tion.

The charges in­clud­ed of­fences un­der the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act, the Of­fences Against the Per­son Act and the Firearms Act.

Of those charged, 10 were men and four were women.

Eight were cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, while six were Venezue­lan na­tion­als.

Their ages ranged from 21 to 57, with the high­est num­bers falling with­in the 25-to-29 and 40-to-44 age groups.

The 14 per­sons charged in 2025 bring the to­tal num­ber of in­di­vid­u­als charged with traf­fick­ing in per­sons and re­lat­ed of­fences since 2013 to 99.

The re­port al­so de­tails progress in the courts, in­clud­ing the coun­try’s sec­ond con­vic­tion in a hu­man traf­fick­ing mat­ter, se­cured in Jan­u­ary 2025.

In that case, the ac­cused was found guilty of traf­fick­ing three Colom­bian women for sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion and sen­tenced to 16 years, five months and 15 days in prison.

Since 2013, 14 ac­cused per­sons have been com­mit­ted to stand tri­al at the High Court. Eight mat­ters were dis­missed, one ac­cused was dis­charged and three ac­cused per­sons were killed.

One per­son plead­ed guilty to im­mi­gra­tion-re­lat­ed of­fences, specif­i­cal­ly aid­ing and abet­ting a vic­tim to en­ter the coun­try il­le­gal­ly.

The re­port states that all 14 per­sons charged in 2025 ap­peared be­fore Mas­ters of the High Court, where sched­ul­ing or­ders were made to ad­vance their cas­es.

The re­main­ing mat­ters con­tin­ue be­fore the Mag­is­trates’ Court.