RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Even as the TTPS in­ves­ti­gates al­le­ga­tions of hu­man traf­fick­ing by se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to prop­er­ly re­source the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

Speak­ing at the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Day cel­e­bra­tion on Sat­ur­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said life had be­come dan­ger­ous for women not­ing that the gov­ern­ment has done noth­ing to curb the scourge of hu­man traf­fick­ing since it took of­fice in 2015.

She lament­ed that women and girls are be­ing vi­o­lat­ed as hu­man traf­fick­ing con­tin­ues.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said when she was Prime Min­is­ter she took ac­tion and passed the 2011 Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act to pro­tect women and chil­dren from be­ing traf­ficked.

Yet, she said even though the Unit­ed States (Traf­fick­ing In Per­sons) re­ports 2022 makes se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions about se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials be­ing in­volved in traf­fick­ing, the Prime Min­is­ter has done noth­ing.

Quot­ing the US 2022 re­port, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "This US re­port states, 'Cor­rup­tion and of­fi­cial com­plic­i­ty in traf­fick­ing crimes re­mained sig­nif­i­cant con­cerns, in­hibit­ing law en­force­ment ac­tion, and the gov­ern­ment did not take ac­tion against se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials al­leged in 2020 to be in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing.' ”

"Yet this gov­ern­ment sat on their hands do­ing noth­ing. Due to their in­ac­tion, we were down­grad­ed to the Tier 2 Watch List.

And when the PM was ques­tioned by MP Charles in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day 24th March about his gov­ern­ment’s ac­tion in this re­gard, his pa­thet­ic re­sponse was he and his gov­ern­ment could do noth­ing," she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said when she goes back in­to of­fice she planned to make changes to the Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion (GATE) so more peo­ple could have ac­cess to ter­tiary fund­ing and find jobs af­ter they be­come qual­i­fied.

She ac­cused Dr Row­ley of shut­ting the gate on peo­ple who want­ed to study by cut­ting down on GATE ac­cess.

"We will align GATE fund­ing to our eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties, job cre­ation and labour mar­ket needs so that per­sons can ac­quire the ad­di­tion­al skills they need for the jobs of to­mor­row.

"In par­tic­u­lar, we need to build a work­force for jobs in the high­ly skilled fields of the Fourth In­dus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion such as ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, ma­chine learn­ing, ro­bot­ics, nan­otech­nol­o­gy, 3D print­ing, ge­net­ics and biotech­nol­o­gy," she said.

She not­ed that the key to strength­en­ing the GATE Pro­gramme is an equal­ly strong and ef­fi­cient ad­min­is­tra­tive and reg­u­la­to­ry body.

"We will im­prove the op­er­a­tions and ef­fi­cien­cy of the ad­min­is­tra­tive body of the GATE Pro­gramme – the Fund­ing and Grants Ad­min­is­tra­tion Di­vi­sion (FGAD)," she added.

She al­so vowed to "take all nec­es­sary steps to min­i­mize cor­rup­tion and an­ti-com­pet­i­tive be­hav­iour, re­duce crime, ease the bur­den of bu­reau­cra­cy, ex­pand the ser­vices of the Sin­gle Elec­tron­ic Win­dow (SEW) for trade and busi­ness fa­cil­i­ta­tion, stream­line pro­ce­dures for start­ing a busi­ness and im­prove the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work for in­sol­ven­cy."

" We will al­so es­tab­lish in­cu­ba­tor parks which link firms to re­search in key ar­eas and help cre­ate a cul­ture that favours in­no­va­tion and adap­ta­tion," she added.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said pover­ty and so­cial in­equal­i­ty make women and chil­dren vul­ner­a­ble and this fa­cil­i­tates hu­man traf­fick­ing.

" For women, we have seen how dan­ger­ous life has be­come un­der this present gov­ern­ment. Since 2017 I have been call­ing for pep­per spray to be giv­en to women so they can at least de­fend them­selves from an at­tack yet till to­day, none of us can ac­cess that self-de­fence tool," she said.

Al­so at­tend­ing the func­tion was UNC MPs Jer­lean John, Khadi­jah Ameen, Michelle Ben­jamin and Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al.

Sev­er­al women from the Pe­nal/Debe re­gion re­ceived awards. These in­clud­ed ed­u­ca­tor Va­lerie Bethel, com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist Ka­malawat­te Seer­a­jh, great-grand­moth­er Bas­so Ram­jass, busi­ness­woman In­di­ra Ram­garib-Kat­wa­roo, URP su­per­vi­sor Eliz­a­beth Roberts Ben­jamin, poul­try farmer Na­toya Danglade, com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist Mar­garet Rose De Gannes Wal­cott, Woman Po­lice Con­sta­ble Dar­lene Renn-Lash­ley, busi­ness­woman Shakun­ta­la Jankie, con­struc­tion di­rec­tor Al­isa Ramkissoon, child coach Van­danaa De­onath-Sankar, com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist Sumatie Rosi­na Bal­lack, moth­er Di­an­na Maria Jag­mo­han, grand­moth­er Ra­jwantie Ramkissoon, lay min­is­ter Glo­ria Bernard Webb, pot­tery artist Sta­cy Lee Ling, teacher Cyn­thia Gob­in, for­mer prin­ci­pal Kameela Ja­hoor, com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist Vashtie Seep­er­sad and man­ag­er Nisha Roop­nar­ine-Mooni­lal.

A spe­cial posthu­mous award was giv­en to Al­isha Ramdeen, who died last year from Covid-19.