Migrant advocate warns human trafficking remains widespread in T&T

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

The re­cent ar­rests linked to an al­leged child traf­fick­ing ring op­er­at­ing across South and Cen­tral Trinidad may have ex­posed on­ly a frac­tion of a much wider prob­lem, a mi­grant sup­port ad­vo­cate be­lieves, as she warned that hu­man traf­fick­ing re­mains preva­lent in Trinidad and To­ba­go and con­tin­ues to ex­ploit vul­ner­a­ble mi­grants.

La Ro­maine Mi­grant Sup­port Group co­or­di­na­tor Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine praised the po­lice for their lat­est ef­forts, par­tic­u­lar­ly the work of the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU), but cau­tioned that in­ves­ti­ga­tors may have on­ly scratched the sur­face.

“At least some ac­tion is yield­ing some­thing, al­though I sus­pect this is just the tip of the ice­berg,” said Ram­nar­ine.

Not­ing the preva­lence of hu­man traf­fick­ing in T&T, Ram­nar­ine, in a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, said sev­er­al mi­grants she knows per­son­al­ly have been af­fect­ed, ei­ther di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, by the trade.

“As long as the de­mand re­mains and it ex­tends out­side of Trinidad and To­ba­go, it will con­tin­ue to be preva­lent,” she said.

“I am told that some of them are brought to Trinidad to be sent up the is­lands.”

While the wider mi­grant com­mu­ni­ty is aware of the trade, she said they must be prop­er­ly ed­u­cat­ed about their rights, the dan­gers of hu­man traf­fick­ing and how they can pro­tect them­selves.

“Some of the traf­ficked women know they are be­ing traf­ficked, but des­per­a­tion, I guess, for em­ploy­ment of some kind keeps them bound up with it. At the end of the day, these traf­fick­ers make huge prof­its from their ex­ploita­tion,” she said.

The con­cerns come amid an on­go­ing CTU in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leged traf­fick­ing and sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion of a 15-year-old girl, which led to an ear­ly-morn­ing op­er­a­tion in Point Fortin on Wednes­day.

The Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty said the op­er­a­tion, con­duct­ed un­der Op­er­a­tion KEY-UN-LUX, in­volved sev­er­al law en­force­ment and so­cial agen­cies.

A 43-year-old Venezue­lan woman and a 32-year-old Trinida­di­an man were ar­rest­ed dur­ing Wednes­day’s ex­er­cise.

Three oth­er Venezue­lan women, aged 19, 28 and 38, were al­so en­coun­tered at the premis­es and screened by CTU of­fi­cers.

In Point Fortin yes­ter­day, res­i­dents ex­pressed sur­prise that hu­man traf­fick­ing could be tak­ing place in their com­mu­ni­ty but praised the po­lice for clamp­ing down on sus­pect­ed traf­fick­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.

A taxi dri­ver, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said he was dis­gust­ed by the re­ports and called for every­one in­volved to be ar­rest­ed.

“I feel dis­gust­ed by this. The po­lice need to ar­rest all of them in­volved in that,” he said.

Point Fortin res­i­dent Ria Har­ri­gin al­so hoped that even­tu­al­ly the au­thor­i­ties would be able to bring an end to hu­man traf­fick­ing in T&T.

“It was good that the po­lice caught the sus­pects, and it is very, very sad that this is still go­ing on in this day and age, es­pe­cial­ly with un­der­age chil­dren,” she said.

Har­ri­gin urged mem­bers of the pub­lic not to turn a blind eye to sus­pi­cious be­hav­iour.

“We should re­port these things to the au­thor­i­ties and re­al­ly, as adults, step up and do what is right to pro­tect our chil­dren,” she said.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the girl’s par­ents are in Venezuela and that she re­mains in the care of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty.

In a re­lease, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der warned that those in­volved in traf­fick­ing and ex­ploit­ing chil­dren would face a de­ter­mined law en­force­ment re­sponse and would be brought be­fore the courts.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion about sus­pect­ed hu­man traf­fick­ing is urged to con­tact the CTU’s toll-free hot­line at 800-4CTU (4288) or What­sApp +1 (868) 702-0467.