JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, July 20, 2025

Sex to go —prostitutes delivered to your door

by

Sharlene Rampersad
2367 days ago
20190126

Sex sells and pros­ti­tu­tion is one of the world’s old­est pro­fes­sions.

In T&T pros­ti­tu­tion is one of the coun­try’s most thriv­ing black-mar­ket in­dus­tries.

In this Guardian Me­dia in­ves­ti­ga­tion, we take a look at this hid­den in­dus­try, which as it turns out, is not that hid­den at all.

Ac­cord­ing to Google Trends, in 2018 T&T is list­ed as third world­wide for the most “porn” search­es.

From 2011 to 2016, T&T was num­ber one on that list.

In 2017, the coun­try slipped in­to the num­ber two spot and then to num­ber three in 2018.

The is­land’s ob­ses­sion with porn may be dwin­dling, but this may on­ly be be­cause sex for mon­ey is so much more eas­i­ly avail­able as un­scrupu­lous “busi­ness peo­ple” take ad­van­tage of the thou­sands of Venezue­lans flee­ing the eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal cri­sis in their home­land.

Years ago, “clients” found women in broth­els across the coun­try.

Al­though that part of the in­dus­try still thrives, “pimps” are now mak­ing pros­ti­tutes more ac­ces­si­ble than ever.

Thin­ly-veiled ad­ver­tise­ments for pros­ti­tutes are in every news­pa­per, some even with the rates at­tached.

Guardian Me­dia called sev­er­al of the num­bers list­ed for “mas­sages”, and with­out hes­i­ta­tion, the men that an­swered the calls of­fered their prices, with one man even of­fer­ing to and send­ing 23 pho­tos of Venezue­lan women that prospec­tive clients to choose from.

The im­ages showed women in lin­gerie, in provoca­tive pos­es flash­ing huge smiles.

Asked about the cost, he said, “It’s $900 an hour for one per­son and $1,300 an hour for a three­some.”

He promised that he could bring the “girls” to any­where in the coun­try that the client want­ed.

“I will drop her and wait,” he said.

He did not at­tempt to con­ceal that the ser­vice he was of­fer­ing was pros­ti­tu­tion and not the “mas­sage par­lour” ser­vice list­ed in the ad­ver­tise­ment.

An­oth­er “mas­sage par­lour” of­fered “nice Span­ish” for $500 an hour.

But it’s not just women that are be­ing of­fered up like meat at a poul­try shop.

In track­ing a post­ing for a male do­ing body mas­sages, Guardian Me­dia was told that the “masseuse” was avail­able for house calls and mas­sages on­ly would cost $300 an hour. When asked what could be added on, he replied, “Any­thing you want, for $100 more.”

He even promised to throw in an ex­tra half hour of his time for free.

There are al­so ads tar­get­ing gay men, with the promise of “good times” for $300 an hour. The meet­ing place was list­ed as a ho­tel in Princes Town. When Guardian Me­dia reached the num­ber list­ed, the man who an­swered con­firmed the ser­vice was for gay men but said he could get “any­one” a client wants.

Venezue­lan women need help

“They told me that I would get work as a wait­ress, but now they force me to have sex with five men in one night.”

These are the words of an 18-year-old Venezue­lan woman who is cur­rent­ly be­ing forced to pros­ti­tute her­self by a “busi­ness­man” who of­ten abus­es her. She has been in the coun­try for two months.

She is not iden­ti­fied for her safe­ty, but her plight has been re­ferred to the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU), the unit of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice that can res­cue her and bring charges against the man who is forc­ing her in­to this lifestyle.

“He mis­treats me, and I have been abused by some clients,” she said. “I do not get any mon­ey, please I need help.”

An­oth­er Venezue­lan woman, flee­ing her home­land came to T&T to work and send mon­ey back to her fam­i­ly.

This 22-year-old woman ad­mits she was not forced to be a pros­ti­tute, but she is seek­ing help to get out of the lifestyle.

“I came with a friend to Trinidad three months ago be­cause I need to help my fam­i­ly. They do not force me to be a pros­ti­tute.”

She said she has sex with up to four men in one night and is paid $300 per en­counter. But her “clients” and em­ploy­ers of­ten are abu­sive to­wards her.

“Some­times they mis­treat me, and I have been abused by clients, I need some help.”

CTU Re­sponse

Counter-Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) head Alana Wheel­er says while pros­ti­tu­tion it­self is no longer il­le­gal, it is il­le­gal for any­one to prof­it from “com­mer­cial sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion.”

In an emailed re­sponse to ques­tions, Wheel­er wrote, “Note that while pros­ti­tu­tion is not recog­nised as a crim­i­nal of­fence in T&T, sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion or sex traf­fick­ing of adults and mi­nors is a crim­i­nal of­fence un­der the TiPs Act Chap­ter 12:10. From the TiPs Act, the fol­low­ing are al­so con­sid­ered to be traf­fick­ing

e) keep­ing a per­son in a state of servi­tude in­clud­ing do­mes­tic and sex­u­al servi­tude;

(f) child pornog­ra­phy;

(g) the ex­ploita­tion of the pros­ti­tu­tion of an­oth­er;

(h) en­gag­ing in any oth­er form of com­mer­cial sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion, in­clud­ing, but not lim­it­ed to, pimp­ing, pan­der­ing, procur­ing, prof­it­ing from pros­ti­tu­tion and main­tain­ing a broth­el.”

Wheel­er ex­plained that the ex­ploita­tion or the pros­ti­tu­tion of oth­ers means one per­son get­ting mon­ey or oth­er ben­e­fits from the pro­vi­sion of sex­u­al ser­vices for mon­ey.

Wheel­er pro­vid­ed sta­tis­tics from 2013 to 2017.

The da­ta shows that over those five years, 32 cas­es of sex traf­fick­ing have been iden­ti­fied in T&T.

“T&T na­tion­als have been charged in all these mat­ters,” Wheel­er said.

“In 2013 (year of procla­ma­tion of TiPs Act Chap­ter 12:10)—eight cas­es of sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion (adult fe­males from Colom­bia, Venezuela, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic), in 2014—three adult fe­male Venezue­lans for sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion, 2015—sev­en adult fe­males for sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion (Venezue­lans, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic) and one fe­male child for sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion.

In 2016—one adult fe­male and one mi­nor for sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion (for­eign na­tion­als.) In 2017 – ten adult fe­males and one mi­nor fe­male (Venezue­lans and TT na­tion­als.)”

Wheel­er said the CTU mon­i­tors pos­si­ble cas­es of sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion by work­ing with oth­er arms of law en­force­ment.

“We al­so re­spond to and in­ves­ti­gate all re­ports made via our hot­line and from all state and non-state stake­hold­ers (po­lice, im­mi­gra­tion, for­eign em­bassies, the pub­lic, etc). CTU has in­ves­ti­gat­ed re­ports of child pornog­ra­phy at schools in T&T.”

The US De­part­ment of State of­fice to mon­i­tor and com­bat Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons, in their 2018 Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Re­port states that over the past five years T&T is a “des­ti­na­tion, tran­sit and source coun­try for adults and chil­dren sub­ject­ed to sex traf­fick­ing and forced labour.”

The re­port notes that women and girls from the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Venezuela and Colom­bia are of­ten lured to the coun­try with of­fers of le­git­i­mate em­ploy­ment and then traf­ficked and forced to work in broth­els and clubs.

It goes on to note, “Be­cause of de­te­ri­o­rat­ing eco­nom­ic con­di­tions in their home coun­try, Venezue­lans are par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble. LGBTI per­sons are vul­ner­a­ble to sex traf­fick­ing. Many traf­fick­ing vic­tims en­ter the coun­try legal­ly via Trinidad’s in­ter­na­tion­al air­port, while oth­ers ap­pear to en­ter il­le­gal­ly via small boats from Venezuela, which is on­ly sev­en miles off­shore. Cor­rup­tion in po­lice and im­mi­gra­tion has in the past been as­so­ci­at­ed with fa­cil­i­tat­ing pros­ti­tu­tion and sex traf­fick­ing.”

The re­port states that while T&T’s does not meet the min­i­mum stan­dards for the elim­i­na­tion of traf­fick­ing, it has made in­creas­ing ef­forts over the past few years.

The re­port notes that T&T’s 2011 Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act crim­i­nalised sex and labour traf­fick­ing and in­tro­duced penal­ties of 15 years to life in prison and no less than $500,000 for those found guilty un­der this Act.

How­ev­er, from 2011 to present, al­though 14 peo­ple have been charged un­der the Act, no one has been con­vict­ed as all the cas­es are still pend­ing be­fore the court.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, the CTU in­ves­ti­gat­ed 38 pos­si­ble cas­es of traf­fick­ing in 2017, 46 cas­es in 2016 and 53 cas­es in 2015.

The re­port states the CTU, po­lice, health, labour and im­mi­gra­tion de­part­ments co­or­di­nat­ed on 20 joint an­ti-traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tions on “sus­pect­ed broth­els.”

Al­so, the re­port said the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s of­fice is in the plan­ning stages for a new in­tel­li­gence-led task force to tack­le hu­man traf­fick­ing. The new task force is sup­posed to have in­put from po­lice, the de­fence force, the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency and the CTU.

How you can re­port traf­fick­ing for sex

Wheel­er says once a mem­ber of the pub­lic makes a re­port of sus­pect­ed hu­man traf­fick­ing for sex, the CTU can pro­vide sus­pect­ed vic­tims with tem­po­rary care and reg­u­larised im­mi­gra­tion sta­tus.

She said the pub­lic could re­port sus­pect­ed cas­es and out­lined the CTU’s re­sponse to these re­ports.

“Once a re­port is made to the CTU, an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is ini­ti­at­ed with state­ments be­ing tak­en from the po­ten­tial/pos­si­ble vic­tim(s) and wit­ness­es. We need a vic­tim’s state­ment in or­der to pur­sue an in­ves­ti­ga­tion that would lead to charges be­ing laid. Wit­ness­es to the crime can al­so pro­vide state­ments. Vic­tims and wit­ness­es can choose to co-op­er­ate or not co­op­er­ate since this is a vol­un­tary process. The po­ten­tial vic­tim/wit­ness is in­formed of the process and if a for­eign na­tion­al, they are pro­vid­ed with TEM­PO­RARY care and reg­u­larised im­mi­gra­tion sta­tus dur­ing the course of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The Of­fice of the DPP is con­sult­ed at all times and will in­struct on charges, if any, to pre­ferred.”

If you know of any­one who is be­ing ex­ploit­ed for pros­ti­tu­tion or traf­ficked for sex, you can pro­vide in­for­ma­tion anony­mous­ly/con­fi­den­tial­ly by call­ing the CTU hot­line 800-4288 (4CTU), send­ing an e-mail or speak­ing di­rect­ly to a CTU of­fi­cer.

What the law says

The amend­ed Sex­u­al Of­fences Act, 2012, states:

17. A per­son who—

(a) (Delet­ed by Act No. 12 of 2012);

(b) pro­cures an­oth­er for pros­ti­tu­tion, whether or not the per­son pro­cured is al­ready a pros­ti­tute, ei­ther in Trinidad and To­ba­go or else­where; or

(c) pro­cures an­oth­er to be­come an in­mate, whether or not the per­son pro­cured is al­ready an in­mate else­where, of or to fre­quent a broth­el ei­ther in Trinidad and To­ba­go or else­where,

is guilty of an of­fence and is li­able on con­vic­tion to im­pris­on­ment for 15 years.

18. A per­son who—(a) by threats or in­tim­i­da­tion pro­cures an­oth­er to have sex­u­al in­ter­course with any per­son ei­ther in Trinidad and To­ba­go or else­where; or

(b) by de­cep­tion pro­cures an­oth­er to have sex­u­al in­ter­course with any per­son ei­ther in Trinidad and To­ba­go or else­where; or

(c) ap­plies, ad­min­is­ters to or caus­es to be tak­en by any per­son any drug, mat­ter or thing with in­tent to stu­pe­fy or over­pow­er that per­son so as there­by to en­able any oth­er per­son to have sex­u­al in­ter­course with that per­son, is guilty of an of­fence and is li­able on con­vic­tion to im­pris­on­ment for 15 years.

19. (1) A per­son who de­tains an­oth­er against that oth­er’s will—

(a) in or up­on any premis­es with in­tent that the per­son de­tained may have sex­u­al in­ter­course with any per­son; or

(b) in any broth­el,

is guilty of an of­fence and is li­able on con­vic­tion to im­pris­on­ment for 10 years.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored