Gail Alexan­der

It is a joke that the UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar can cel­e­brate In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Day in light of damn­ing al­le­ga­tions of pros­ti­tu­tion and hu­man traf­fick­ing as­so­ci­at­ed with the par­ty, says for­mer UNC min­is­ter Dr De­vant Ma­haraj

The state­ment was Ma­haraj's con­tin­u­a­tion of his po­si­tion fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions he's re­cent­ly made about al­leged hu­man traf­fick­ing and pros­ti­tu­tion by cer­tain peo­ple who were top UNC of­fi­cials dur­ing the PP/UNC gov­ern­ment's tenure.

It fol­lowed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley's re­cent claim that a cur­rent Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment is the per­son ref­er­enced in a 2022 US Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons re­port al­leg­ing "se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials" were in­volved in traf­fick­ing.

Al­le­ga­tions on the is­sue in the pub­lic do­main are now un­der TTPS probe. Ma­haraj gave the TTPS a sev­en-page state­ment on the sit­u­a­tion last week­end, af­ter the TTPS sought a state­ment or in­ter­view from him.

For­mer UNC min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath, who'd made sim­i­lar al­le­ga­tions, said yes­ter­day he hasn't been con­tact­ed yet by the TTPS.

There was no an­swer yes­ter­day to calls from Sr Supt Pam­ponette (Spe­cial In­ves­tiga­tive Unit), who heads the TTPS' probe team. Sources close to the probe claimed, "Ma­haraj is by no means the on­ly per­son" the TTPS will speak to.

Af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar's state­ments last week­end in Pe­nal on In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Day (when she heaped scorn on al­le­ga­tions), Ma­haraj yes­ter­day claimed, "For the Op­po­si­tion Leader to say that life for women is more dan­ger­ous now is of­fen­sive, as women and girls are treat­ed as chat­tel prop­er­ty by per­sons in the UNC near and dear to her.

"Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's treat­ment of women in the UNC al­so reads like an obit­u­ary of women whose po­lit­i­cal ca­reers were ter­mi­nat­ed with ex­treme prej­u­dice. Kam­la's po­lit­i­cal ceme­tery of women in­di­cates that life as a woman in the UNC is nasty, brutish and short.

"Women who have been axed un­der the fe­male lead­er­ship in­clude: Nela Khan, Mary King, Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit, Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan, Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine, Ra­mona Ram­di­al, Ver­na St Rose Greaves, Nan Ram­goolam, Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith, Razia Ahmed, Chris­tine Newal­lo-Ho­sein, Vidya Goopesingh."

He added, "What in­stead the Op­po­si­tion Leader should be ad­dress­ing is the cov­er-ups of the cus­tomis­ing of women un­der the Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment."

Apart from al­le­ga­tions against for­mer min­is­ters whom he named, Ma­haraj al­so asked whether Per­sad-Bisses­sar could con­firm or de­ny that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was done on a for­mer min­is­ter (now de­ceased) re­gard­ing the al­leged sex­u­al as­sault of staff and oth­er women.

"Can the Op­po­si­tion Leader con­firm or de­ny if Min­is­ter Ver­na St Rose-Greaves was ap­point­ed to in­ves­ti­gate those al­le­ga­tions - and whether HDC hous­es were al­lo­cat­ed to women in or­der to se­cure their si­lence re­gard­ing those al­le­ga­tions?" Ma­haraj added.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day St Rose-Greaves, who was in the PP gov­ern­ment for 11 months, said, "No com­ment."

For­mer PP/UNC Hous­ing Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal didn't re­ply to queries on the claim ei­ther.