Joshua Seemu­n­gal

For many years, men, of­ten in­tox­i­cat­ed, would roam Bhagna Trace in Cara­pichaima to sat­is­fy their sex­u­al ap­petites.

A busi­ness that front­ed as a ho­tel and night­club of­fered them a choice of lo­cal, Caribbean, Venezue­lan and even Asian and African women.

While every­one in Bhagna Trace and across many parts of the coun­try knew the busi­ness was a broth­el, the il­le­gal ex­changes of cash for flesh car­ried on with­out any mean­ing­ful dis­rup­tion by of­fi­cers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice or the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion.

For years, res­i­dents sat silent­ly–dar­ing not to speak out in fear of the con­se­quences–hop­ing that the broth­el would be per­ma­nent­ly shut down by the au­thor­i­ties.

Even when the own­er of the es­tab­lish­ment and an em­ploy­ee were ar­rest­ed and charged in 2015 for traf­fick­ing two Venezue­lan women, that day still did not come.

It would not be un­til 2022, fol­low­ing the death of an own­er, that one of cen­tral Trinidad’s most well-known broth­els closed down per­ma­nent­ly.

And while it has been one year since its clo­sure, res­i­dents of Bhagna Trace said the area still car­ries a ‘heav­i­ness’ as­so­ci­at­ed with the il­lic­it op­er­a­tions.

“We got ac­cus­tomed to it af­ter a while. It was com­mon knowl­edge of what was go­ing on there, and it was com­mon knowl­edge that the po­lice were in­volved.

“It’s prob­a­bly true that cen­tral Trinidad has the most hu­man traf­fick­ing. But it’s not from this area alone that peo­ple come. Peo­ple come from all around,” a male res­i­dent said.

As he spoke, the res­i­dent scanned his sur­round­ings for on­look­ers and did his ut­most to speak as soft­ly as pos­si­ble.

See­ing that he was vis­i­bly con­cerned, the con­ver­sa­tion was cut short, and we pro­ceed­ed by foot fur­ther down the trace.

“I don’t med­dle with this thing, but that go­ing on a long time,” a mid­dle-aged woman said.

“It’s ter­ri­ble. You shame to tell peo­ple that you’re liv­ing in­side here. The first thing they ask you is if you go in­side of *names broth­el*. My young son com­ing up here, his broth­er give him fa­tigue for liv­ing in here. We’ve been stig­ma­tised. The on­ly good thing is that if you are liv­ing in Bhagna Trace, you could tell some­one you not liv­ing far from it. It’s a land­mark,” the woman said of the broth­el, as she shook her head and smiled cheek­i­ly.

Two young moth­ers who over­heard the con­ver­sa­tion chimed in.

“Boy, it doesn’t be nice. It don’t be nice. I’m hap­py it was shut down. I was fright­ened be­cause there used to be a lot of drunk peo­ple. It was not a good thing for peo­ple and their young chil­dren to be grow­ing up around.

“When it was open, strange peo­ple were wan­der­ing all around the area. So you didn’t know who was who. There’s still a lot of it go­ing on around else­where in the area be­cause there are a lot of apart­ment build­ings. Venezue­lans rent­ing and com­ing and go­ing. You feel a heavy vibe in this area right now. It left a stain in the whole area,” one of the young moth­ers said.

Her friend put things in far sim­pler terms.

“Men nasty. They are just nasty. I feel if some­one else took it over un­der new man­age­ment, I feel they will car­ry on the same thing over there,” she said.

Fol­low­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, we made our way up the trace to the build­ing that once housed the broth­el.

Its large dark brown wood­en doors were shut. Above the doors, the white paint of the words ‘Ho­tel’ was as vis­i­ble as ever.

A short dis­tance away from the build­ing was a group of three male res­i­dents.

The men, none old­er than 35 years old, be­gan to speak about pros­ti­tu­tion and hu­man traf­fick­ing as they saw it.

“Boy, it’s ob­vi­ous. Men wan­na live. But, it’s not just cen­tral Trinidad. You wouldn’t be­lieve but it’s men com­ing from all over.

“It’s not just to re­lieve stress. Men like that adren­a­line. It does be a rush. I’ve been around the en­vi­ron­ment and you see that lust. A boy will see some­thing–he has that home, you know, but he wants to ex­pe­ri­ence some­thing dif­fer­ent. What his wife might not give him home, he has the cash and he will tell the pros­ti­tute what he wants and he gets it,” one of the men said.

An­oth­er one of the men be­lieved that it was ob­vi­ous that high-rank­ing mem­bers of so­ci­ety, like politi­cians, were ‘in­volved.

“We are get­ting the scraps, you know. They are get­ting re­al high-qual­i­ty women. We wouldn’t be where they are. Let's be re­al,” he said.

Cameras, at a closed brothel near Bhagna Trace, that once kept an eye out.

Open for busi­ness

A short dis­tance away from the closed broth­el in Bhagna Trace is an­oth­er one of Cara­pichaima’s, and cen­tral Trinidad’s, most well-known broth­els which re­mains open for busi­ness.

Dur­ing the day, its mas­sive steel front gate re­mains closed, block­ing any­one from see­ing what takes place be­hind them.

But every­one in the area knows what oc­curs be­hind its walls at night.

“The meat shop. My broth­er calls it the meat shop. It’s dis­gust­ing.

“Po­lice pro­tect­ing them, you know. They are well pro­tect­ed,” an el­der­ly fe­male res­i­dent who lives a short dis­tance from the broth­el lament­ed.

The res­i­dent, who was aware of the po­lit­i­cal back and forth be­tween the PNM and UNC on the is­sue of hu­man traf­fick­ing, be­lieved the lat­est dis­cus­sion was an at­tempt to dis­tract the pop­u­la­tion.

“The politi­cians are seek­ing to dis­tract us. It’s the same old sto­ry. They are try­ing to dis­tract the pop­u­la­tion from how poor­ly the coun­try is be­ing gov­erned. Right now, it have holes in the road that we could fall in.

“This thing go­ing on for a long time. It’s the par­ty fi­nancers on both sides who are be­hind it (hu­man traf­fick­ing). A Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment tried to shut them down a few years back, and she got death threats,” the woman said.

An­oth­er woman who lives close to the broth­el said it at­tracts all sorts of strange and sus­pi­cious in­di­vid­u­als to the area.

She called the broth­el’s op­er­a­tions dis­gust­ing, say­ing it brings shame to the com­mu­ni­ty.

“We used to have peo­ple in the back who used to get robbed here. But now the guy who was run­ning it died, and the new own­er is a woman. I think they prob­a­bly rent it out and have some­body else run­ning it.

“In the area, it have no au­thor­i­ty, noth­ing. Even the po­lice and them in rack­et still. It might have one good one and ten bad ones. They have all the youths and them do­ing il­le­gal things. And if the youths dead, they don’t busi­ness, and that’s why crime is so high,” the woman com­plained.

In 2018, po­lice of­fi­cers raid­ed the es­tab­lish­ment and ar­rest­ed/res­cued 26 women–from Venezuela, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Guyana, Grena­da and Ja­maica.

Five of the women were charged with lewd and sug­ges­tive danc­ing, and ten for­eign men were al­so ar­rest­ed.

Last week, the Sun­day Guardian re­port­ed that the ma­jor­i­ty of hu­man traf­fick­ing re­ports come from cen­tral Trinidad, ac­cord­ing to Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit sources.

Since the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act be­came law in Trinidad and To­ba­go in 2012, not a sin­gle per­son has been con­vict­ed of hu­man traf­fick­ing.