Not much was re­vealed in a press con­fer­ence a short while ago about ex­act­ly what tran­spired amidst re­ports of a 21-year-old mi­grant woman al­leged­ly be­ing raped and as­sault­ed al­leged­ly by Coast Guard of­fi­cers at the He­li­port in Ch­aguara­mas last month.

In­stead the me­dia was scold­ed for not be­ing “sen­si­tive” in re­port­ing such mat­ters.

Supt Claire Guy Al­leyne of the Spe­cial Vic­tims Unit said, “I’m in this busi­ness for a while now. And when you plas­ter these things on the front page of the me­dia, you know, the progress that law en­force­ment would have been ob­tain­ing, it sort of sends us back in a ret­ro­grade step. Es­pe­cial­ly, I mean, in this case, the mi­grant can­di­dates may not be able to read the Eng­lish, but when­ev­er vic­tims or sur­vivors of sex­u­al or phys­i­cal ex­ploita­tion, these things plas­tered in the me­dia it puts a neg­a­tive a very neg­a­tive ef­fect on the law en­force­ment in­ves­ti­ga­tion and very lit­tle or noth­ing would be dis­closed.”

Guy Al­leyne said she was in­struct­ed by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate re­ports of mis­con­duct and sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion at the He­li­port in Ch­aguara­mas. She said dur­ing in­ter­views, no sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion was dis­closed at the lo­ca­tion.

“There were mi­grants at that lo­ca­tion and all of them were in­ter­viewed and no sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion was dis­closed to the po­lice at the time,” she ex­plained.

She said at the time there were three men and 35 women be­ing de­tained, but she de­clined to say whether those guard­ing them were men or women. She said the in­ter­vie­wees were promised their re­ports would be con­fi­den­tial.

“ There was an in­ter­preter as well and we in­ter­viewed those per­sons and we as­sured them that here’s, what, we are law en­force­ment, and we are here for you and we are ask­ing you to give us any in­for­ma­tion that you may have of any mis­con­duct or any crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty tak­ing place on the premis­es,” Guy Al­leyne said.

But while at the lo­ca­tion they re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that while con­duct­ing a head count, of­fi­cers dis­cov­ered the 21-year-old was miss­ing from the com­pound.

“She was lat­er found by Ch­agua­nas po­lice and the counter traf­fick­ing unit where she’s safe. And we are con­duct­ing an ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion to get the facts and ev­i­dence so if the al­le­ga­tions are true, and per­sons the al­le­ga­tions are made against would be brought to jus­tice, and the law can take its process.”

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, court doc­u­ments filed by her at­tor­neys on Fri­day in­di­cat­ed that she was tak­en from the He­li­port by of­fi­cers there and dropped off on the side of the West­ern Main Road in Ch­aguara­mas.

The hasti­ly called joint press con­fer­ence in­clud­ed Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials, the TTPS, and the counter traf­fick­ing unit. Noth­ing was said about if any of­fi­cers were be­ing de­tained, or trans­ferred dur­ing the course of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Lau­ra Ram­char­i­tar Se­nior Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer who laid out the se­quence of events as they know it, the 21-year-old was ar­rest­ed on March 21 at the Tequi­la Bar in Freeport. She was de­tained at the He­li­port im­mi­gra­tion sta­tion charged with il­le­gal en­try. She was in­ter­viewed by an im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer who said no “traf­fick­ing in­di­ca­tors would have been ex­hib­it­ed.” She said the 21-year-old ad­mit­ted to en­ter­ing the coun­try with­out a pass­port or visa.

She went miss­ing on April 4. On April 6, a so­cial me­dia post from her boyfriend be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing say­ing that she was abused by of­fi­cials at the fa­cil­i­ty and she had been re­moved. She was de­tained by Ch­agua­nas Po­lice on May 26 where she is cur­rent­ly in the care and cus­tody of the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit.