Un­re­li­able psy­cho­log­i­cal help, a se­vere lan­guage bar­ri­er, and the un­cer­tain­ty of their fu­ture are the main prob­lems that have con­front­ed the un­der­aged women who were res­cued from a sex traf­fick­ing ring in Feb­ru­ary of this year and lat­er placed un­der the pro­tec­tion of the State in a safe house.

At least 19 South Amer­i­can women—ages 15-18—were res­cued from two homes in West­moor­ings and a restau­rant along Ari­api­ta Av­enue on Feb­ru­ary 6 in an op­er­a­tion led by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith with of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT).

Of those 19 women, three were un­der­aged girls.

One age 15 and two ages 17 were tak­en to an in­sti­tu­tion (name with­held) deemed a safe house where the State's un­der­tak­ing was to help as­sist these girls to over­come the psy­cho­log­i­cal trau­ma they faced af­ter be­ing forced in­to sex slav­ery. One of the young women from the West­moor­ings raid turned 18 in ear­ly April and was lat­er sent back to her fam­i­ly in Venezuela.

But the oth­er two girls re­main the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the work­ers at the in­sti­tu­tion where they are tak­en care of and pro­vid­ed with ba­sic ameni­ties in­clud­ing food and cloth­ing and cours­es to learn to speak Eng­lish.

At least sev­en oth­er fe­male Venezue­lan mi­nors were al­so be­ing kept at this in­sti­tu­tion af­ter they be­came vic­tims of hu­man traf­fick­ing in dif­fer­ent cas­es.

Psy­cho­log­i­cal prob­lems

But ad­just­ing to their new home has been any­thing but com­fort­ing.

"Arrange­ments had been made to have a fe­male bi-lin­gual psy­chol­o­gist in­tro­duced to these girls. This woman has good ex­pe­ri­ence deal­ing with refugees in the past and she is be­ing con­sid­ered for a for­eign-based train­ing pro­gramme in the not too dis­tant fu­ture, but there was some re­sis­tance to this idea," re­vealed an in­tel­li­gence source fa­mil­iar with the case.

He said they opt­ed in­stead to hire a non-Span­ish speak­ing male psy­chol­o­gist to in­ter­act with these young women. "He is hav­ing to re­ly on Google trans­la­tor to speak to these young girls who need to have the best pos­si­ble psy­cho­log­i­cal treat­ment af­ter the trau­mat­ic or­deal they have suf­fered."

His vis­its are spo­radic, the source con­tend­ed.

An­oth­er of­fi­cial who has al­so been close to the case and who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty said there were chal­lenges in mak­ing the right de­ci­sions to as­sist these young women.

The of­fi­cial said that in or­der to as­sist these young women, per­mis­sion must be sought from the chil­dren's par­ents. This is usu­al­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed by ap­ply­ing for guardian­ship through the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty. "In the case of the young woman who is 15, I am told that some­one had to ap­ply to her moth­er in Venezuela to get per­mis­sion to as­sist the mi­nor. It seems that this type of case had nev­er oc­curred be­fore in Trinidad and the per­son in­quired to the dif­fer­ent au­thor­i­ties how they could land per­mis­sion to as­sist this young woman. But in many cas­es in­for­ma­tion was not forth­com­ing from gov­ern­ment agen­cies. But fi­nal­ly, they were able to get the rel­e­vant per­mis­sion from the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty af­ter the moth­er in Venezuela had con­sent­ed."

These young women, the of­fi­cial ex­plained, need­ed se­ri­ous psy­cho­log­i­cal help. "Some of them still have the fear that they might be go­ing to jail at some point and they still don't com­plete­ly un­der­stand what has hap­pened or is hap­pen­ing."

Lan­guage bar­ri­er

At the in­sti­tu­tion, most of the work­ers are faced with lan­guage bar­ri­er is­sues and are forced to use Google trans­la­tor on their phones to in­ter­act with these young women. "The fact of the mat­ter is that this is the first time that these work­ers have been ex­posed to this sit­u­a­tion in any mea­sure and have nev­er had to deal with per­sons speak­ing a dif­fer­ent lan­guage," the of­fi­cial said.

In fact, an of­fi­cial at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty said, "There are no shel­ters to deal with vic­tims of hu­man traf­fick­ing in this coun­try. The staff we have at most of these in­sti­tu­tions are re­al­ly trained to deal with pris­on­ers or ju­ve­niles and not vic­tims who are mi­nors. There has to be a men­tal shift and the po­lit­i­cal will to do so."

Sources said that sev­er­al re­ports have been sub­mit­ted in the past to the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to ad­dress this par­tic­u­lar is­sue, but these have all fall­en on deaf ears.

In the US 2019 Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Re­port for this coun­try re­leased on June 20, US of­fi­cials in­di­cat­ed the need to "Pro­vide ad­e­quate fund­ing for ro­bust traf­fick­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions and vic­tim ser­vices, in­clud­ing ac­com­mo­da­tions" and to "in­crease train­ing on traf­fick­ing for NGOs and shel­ter staff to im­prove their abil­i­ty to iden­ti­fy and care for po­ten­tial traf­fick­ing vic­tims".

Trinidad re­mained at a Tier 2 sta­tus ac­cord­ing to the re­port that stat­ed the coun­try had not ful­ly met the min­i­mum stan­dards for elim­i­nat­ing traf­fick­ing.

Need for full-time so­cial work­ers

The of­fi­cial from the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty who has al­so been close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the young women's cas­es said that there was the need for a full-time so­cial work­er to be as­signed to their cas­es. "At the mo­ment, there is a part-time so­cial work­er and they can­not co­or­di­nate prop­er­ly with a dri­ver and se­cu­ri­ty to take these young women around. If there is a full-time so­cial work­er they can then prop­er­ly or­gan­ise for these young women to be tak­en out at times with the prop­er se­cu­ri­ty. Re­mem­ber these are young girls and they need to get out," said the of­fi­cial.

The of­fi­cial said there were cas­es when po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors were called in the past to dri­ve the girls around. "They should not be do­ing that job, they should be fo­cussing on their in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Again, the pol­i­cy­mak­ers have to take note."

Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit face $$, staff short­age

The Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) hands are vir­tu­al­ly tied when it comes to their abil­i­ty to deal with cas­es of hu­man traf­fick­ing in this coun­try.

That was dis­closed by a se­nior law en­force­ment of­fi­cial that has worked in the unit for sev­er­al years.

Speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, the se­nior source said, "There are is­sues with re­sources and staff. The unit is not staffed ad­e­quate­ly and every year no pri­or­i­ty is giv­en in the bud­get to ad­dress this prob­lem. In fact, the bud­get for the CTU has shrunk over the years. There is no re­al in­tent to bol­ster this unit," the source said.

These con­cerns were al­so re­flect­ed in the US 2019 Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Re­port for Trinidad as they in­di­cat­ed that there was a pat­tern of the bud­get al­lo­ca­tion for the CTU dwin­dling over the years. The re­port not­ed: "The Gov­ern­ment did not pro­vide spe­cif­ic fig­ures for its bud­get al­lo­ca­tions to the CTU for the fis­cal year 2018-2019, but of­fi­cials con­firmed the bud­get was low­er dur­ing this re­port­ing pe­ri­od; this com­pared to TT 7 mil­lion (US $1.03m) in 2017-2018, TT 3 mil­lion (US $443,130) for 2016-2017 and TT 8 mil­lion (US $1.18m) for 2015-2016."

Since the in­cep­tion of the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit un­der the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty six years ago, on­ly 56 peo­ple—a lit­tle more than nine a year—have faced the courts for this of­fence, ac­cord­ing to a law en­force­ment of­fi­cial. To date, no one has been con­vict­ed, the au­thor­i­ties said.

The se­nior law en­force­ment source said "Once the mat­ter starts in court then it's up to the Ju­di­cia­ry. Not enough pri­or­i­ty is placed on hu­man traf­fick­ing cas­es in the court, even though the AG's of­fice has been try­ing to ex­pe­dite court mat­ters by in­tro­duc­ing new leg­is­la­tion and amend­ing ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tion."

The law en­force­ment of­fi­cial said there was a way for these mat­ters to be dealt with more quick­ly. "I think the Ju­di­cia­ry should in­tro­duce a spe­cialised court to deal with sex­u­al mat­ters and hu­man traf­fick­ing."

And while the CTU is faced with staffing and oth­er re­source is­sues, a se­nior in­tel­li­gence source told Sun­day Guardian that he be­lieves some of the da­ta ob­tained from the CTU might have been in­com­plete. "We did not get a whole lot of spe­cif­ic da­ta and I think some of the fig­ures could have been in­ac­cu­rate," he added.

He ex­plained that this da­ta was cru­cial since it helped the US put to­geth­er their Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Re­port for this coun­try on an an­nu­al ba­sis.

But the of­fi­cial at the CTU, ques­tioned about in­ac­cu­rate or in­com­plete da­ta, said, "They talk to a num­ber of peo­ple when they are putting that re­port to­geth­er... Var­i­ous NGOs, gov­ern­ment agen­cies, etc and in the fi­nal re­port, the coun­try has no say. If a 50-page re­port is sub­mit­ted, on­ly one-tenth might be used. So, I re­al­ly do not know where that idea came from."

BOX

Min­is­ter of Gen­der and Child Af­fairs:

Girls pro­vid­ed with psy­cho­log­i­cal care, we are look­ing for a full-time trans­la­tor

Min­is­ter of Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy said that her min­istry was work­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to have a full-time trans­la­tor/in­ter­preter at the place where the young Venezue­lan women were be­ing kept.

"We are work­ing with the man­ag­er at (name of the in­sti­tu­tion called) to en­sure that the girls re­ceive all the ser­vices they re­quire," said Web­ster-Roy in an emailed re­sponse to Sun­day Guardian. "Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty (Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit) pro­vides trans­la­tion/in­ter­pret­ing ser­vices and teach­ing ser­vices for Eng­lish at the (name of the in­sti­tu­tion called) twice per week. How­ev­er, con­sid­er­a­tion is be­ing giv­en to hav­ing a trans­la­tor/in­ter­preter at the home, full time, to aug­ment the ser­vices pro­vid­ed by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty."

She said the girls were be­ing pro­vid­ed with psy­cho­log­i­cal care, the same af­ford­ed to oth­ers at the in­sti­tu­tion.

The Sun­day Guardian al­so asked Web­ster Roy whether she felt it was nec­es­sary for the Gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er es­tab­lish­ing a shel­ter for vic­tims of hu­man traf­fick­ing .

She said her min­istry was col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to pro­vide ac­com­mo­da­tion for vic­tims of hu­man traf­fick­ing.

"There may not be the need for spe­cial fa­cil­i­ties but rather spe­cialised in­di­vid­ual ser­vices based on the na­ture of the vic­tim's need/s as iden­ti­fied."

BOX

Re­cent ar­rests in­clude:

•On June 26—Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice Akeem James was ar­rest­ed and charged for rape, griev­ous sex­u­al as­su­alt and false im­pris­on­ment of a 29-year-old fe­male Venezue­lan na­tion­al.

•On Feb­ru­ary 6, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith lead an op­er­a­tion that res­cued 19 young South Amer­i­can women from two homes in West­moor­in­gs and a restau­rant along Ari­api­ta Av­enue. The young women, ages 15-18 years, were locked in rooms and made to take drugs and have sex with men for mon­ey. Po­lice al­so round­ed up at least 18 sus­pects for ques­tion­ing. A Chi­nese man, Jin­fu Zhu, and his 23-year-old Venezue­lan ac­com­plice, Solient Tor­res, were lat­er charged with 43 sex charges un­der the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act. The young women, most­ly of Venezue­lan na­tion­al­i­ty, were lat­er tak­en un­der the State’s care and kept in a safe house.

•Mere days af­ter this ma­jor bust, a 24-year-old Venezue­lan woman who had es­caped from hu­man traf­fick­ers was re­cap­tured by them in Diego Mar­tin. Po­lice in­ter­cept­ed the al­leg­ed traf­fick­ers along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way in the Clax­ton Bay area. Bat­tered and bruised, the shak­en woman was tak­en to the Wood­brook Po­lice Sta­tion. Akeem James, a 28-year-old spe­cial re­serve po­lice of­fi­cer and 39-year-old Kevin Houl­der, a truck dri­ver, were lat­er ar­rest­ed .

•In Oc­to­ber last year, a 19-year-old Venezue­lan woman was se­vere­ly beat­en in a house in Debe. A video of the beat­ing was post­ed on so­cial me­dia by her al­leg­ed per­pe­tra­tor who be­rat­ed her. A Diego Mar­tin man, Aval­on Cal­len­der, was lat­er charged with kid­nap­ping and wound­ing with in­tent.

Sex work from age 15

One of the 17-year-old mi­nors res­cued from a West­moor­ings house told of­fi­cials that she had been com­ing to Trinidad since the age of 15 and en­gag­ing in sex­u­al acts.

The Cara­cas teen, who is now at a safe house, re­vealed that her trav­els were fa­cil­i­tat­ed by boat and was or­gan­ised by a Venezue­lan woman.

"She told us she has been here at least three times and has worked and gone back. One of the arrange­ments she had with the woman was to get 'new blood' any­time she went back to Venezuela," said an of­fi­cial fa­mil­iar with the de­tails of these young women's cas­es.

On her last trip to Trinidad, the of­fi­cial said she got a 15-year-old girl from Cara­cas to ac­com­pa­ny her and a 17-year-old girl from Tu­cu­pi­ta. "This last trip was by boat from Tu­cu­pi­ta, but be­fore that, she left through Guiria. She knew she was in the busi­ness of sex but would of­ten re­cruit younger girls to go to Trinidad telling them that they could get a job there," ex­plained the of­fi­cial.

But once here, the young women were forced in­to sex slav­ery by the Venezue­lan woman and her male boyfriend.

"The moth­er of the 15-year-old girl had told her not to go but she de­fied her moth­er and now the on­ly thing she can think about is go­ing home," said the in­sid­er.

The girl from Tu­cu­pi­ta who re­cent­ly turned 18 was sent back to her fam­i­ly in Venezuela, while the 15-year-old and the 17-year-old (who had been in­stru­men­tal in bring­ing both girls across) re­main in the in­sti­tu­tion deemed a safe house un­der the watch of the State.