AG meets US Embassy officials on human trafficking

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie has met with a del­e­ga­tion from the Unit­ed States Em­bassy to dis­cuss hu­man traf­fick­ing and op­por­tu­ni­ties for con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion to com­bat the crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider Caribbean.

The meet­ing fo­cused on chal­lenges as­so­ci­at­ed with traf­fick­ing in per­sons, in­clud­ing the ex­ploita­tion of vul­ner­a­ble in­di­vid­u­als, the move­ment of vic­tims across bor­ders and links be­tween hu­man traf­fick­ing and transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime.

Dis­cus­sions al­so ad­dressed the need to strength­en sys­tems for iden­ti­fy­ing and pro­tect­ing vic­tims, im­prove in­ves­ti­ga­tions and pros­e­cu­tions, and tack­le the so­cial and eco­nom­ic vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties that leave peo­ple ex­posed to ex­ploita­tion.

Je­re­mie, who was ac­com­pa­nied by Se­nior Le­gal Coun­sel Anisa Kallap, met with the del­e­ga­tion led by US Chargé d’Af­faires Philip Kern.

The del­e­ga­tion al­so in­clud­ed Po­lit­i­cal Eco­nom­ic Coun­sel­lor Scott Hansen, Po­lit­i­cal Of­fi­cer Gwyneth Koz­ma, Prin­ci­pal Deputy Di­rec­tor of the US Of­fice to Mon­i­tor and Com­bat Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Rachel Poyn­ter, Pro­gramme As­sis­tant Harold Jahnsen and Site Of­fi­cer and Note­tak­er Erne Guz­man.

The meet­ing un­der­scored the im­por­tance of re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion in ad­dress­ing hu­man traf­fick­ing, which of­ten in­volves crim­i­nal net­works op­er­at­ing across na­tion­al bor­ders.

Ac­cord­ing to the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Unit­ed States could help strength­en law en­force­ment ca­pa­bil­i­ties, im­prove in­tel­li­gence and in­for­ma­tion shar­ing, pro­vide spe­cialised train­ing for in­ves­ti­ga­tors and pros­e­cu­tors, and en­hance the col­lec­tion and preser­va­tion of ev­i­dence for suc­cess­ful pros­e­cu­tions.

Co­op­er­a­tion could al­so sup­port more ef­fec­tive vic­tim iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and re­fer­ral sys­tems, as well as ap­pro­pri­ate ser­vices for sur­vivors.

The dis­cus­sions fur­ther recog­nised the po­ten­tial for the Unit­ed States to sup­port re­gion­al ef­forts to strength­en in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty, im­prove in­ves­tiga­tive co­or­di­na­tion and pro­mote a vic­tim-cen­tred ap­proach that pri­ori­tis­es the safe­ty, dig­ni­ty and rights of traf­fick­ing vic­tims.

The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al said it re­mained com­mit­ted to en­gag­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners on mat­ters of mu­tu­al in­ter­est to sup­port ini­tia­tives that strength­en the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice and the rule of law.