DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go has record­ed on­ly two con­vic­tions for hu­man traf­fick­ing of­fences, de­spite 85 peo­ple ap­pear­ing be­fore the courts for traf­fick­ing and re­lat­ed of­fences be­tween 2013 and 2024, ac­cord­ing to the Gov­ern­ment’s sub­mis­sion to the Unit­ed Na­tions Hu­man Rights Coun­cil’s Uni­ver­sal Pe­ri­od­ic Re­view (UPR).

The fig­ures have raised ques­tions about the ef­fec­tive­ness of in­ves­ti­ga­tions and pros­e­cu­tions, as well as the sup­port avail­able to vic­tims ex­pect­ed to par­tic­i­pate in crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings.

How­ev­er, for­mer head of the Caribbean Cen­tre for Hu­man Rights Denise Pitch­er says the low num­ber of con­vic­tions re­mains deeply con­cern­ing, giv­en the scale of traf­fick­ing she be­lieves oc­curs in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Pitch­er ques­tioned whether law en­force­ment agen­cies were do­ing enough to gath­er ev­i­dence and cre­ate an en­vi­ron­ment in which vic­tims feel safe re­port­ing of­fences.

“First, many traf­fick­ing vic­tims know that mem­bers of dif­fer­ent State agen­cies are in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing. And so they are scared for their safe­ty be­cause they know that if they make a re­port, they could be vic­timised/tar­get­ed, right? The in­for­ma­tion could get back to who­ev­er was in­volved,” Pitch­er said.

“And then traf­fick­ing vic­tims, of course, there’s the lan­guage bar­ri­er, the cul­tur­al bar­ri­er, the gen­er­al at­ti­tude some­times by the po­lice of­fi­cers them­selves that dis­cour­ages vic­tims from com­ing for­ward,” she added.

Pitch­er rec­om­mend­ed that the State de­vote more re­sources to iden­ti­fy­ing and re­mov­ing of­fi­cers in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, while strength­en­ing re­cruit­ment, train­ing and over­sight.

“Laws are one thing, right? You can have the best laws, but it’s about en­force­ment of the laws,” she said.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad iden­ti­fied de­lays in the ju­di­cial sys­tem as an­oth­er ob­sta­cle.

He said this can leave vic­tims un­will­ing to con­tin­ue with pros­e­cu­tions.

Seep­er­sad said some may re­lo­cate, lose in­ter­est in tes­ti­fy­ing or de­cide they no longer want to re­vis­it the trau­ma of their ex­pe­ri­ences.

He said vic­tims re­quire psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port and pro­tec­tion from in­tim­i­da­tion to help them par­tic­i­pate in pros­e­cu­tions.

Seep­er­sad al­so raised the pos­si­bil­i­ty of leg­isla­tive changes to al­low record­ed tes­ti­mo­ny to be ad­mit­ted in court when a vic­tim lat­er be­comes un­avail­able or un­will­ing to tes­ti­fy in per­son.

“What we have to recog­nise, es­pe­cial­ly among law en­force­ment agen­cies and leg­is­la­tors, is that you need to take every pos­si­ble mea­sure to se­cure that tes­ti­mo­ny from per­sons who are vic­tims. They need to ed­u­cate them about the harm that these per­pe­tra­tors could cause on oth­er per­sons. You al­so have to pro­vide them with the psy­cho­log­i­cal coun­selling that they will need to help mit­i­gate the psy­cho­log­i­cal fall­out of the traf­fick­ing in­ci­dent. Be­cause if you don’t deal with that par­tic­u­lar thing, then some of them may not be in the frame of mind ever to tes­ti­fy,” he said.

He ac­knowl­edged that wit­ness pro­tec­tion pro­grammes could be cost­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly when cas­es take years to reach tri­al and wit­ness­es re­quire sup­port over an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od.

The Gov­ern­ment’s sub­mis­sion forms part of T&T’s Fourth Cy­cle UPR, through which coun­tries re­port to the UN Hu­man Rights Coun­cil on their hu­man rights record and com­mit­ments.

The re­port iden­ti­fies sev­er­al ob­sta­cles to se­cur­ing con­vic­tions for hu­man traf­fick­ing of­fences, in­clud­ing vic­tims’ un­will­ing­ness to co­op­er­ate with po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions, re­quests to be repa­tri­at­ed to their home coun­tries or else­where, and the fact that vic­tims can­not be com­pelled to as­sist with pros­e­cu­tions.

It fur­ther not­ed that the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) is strength­en­ing its ev­i­dence and in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing ca­pac­i­ty and con­duct­ing in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions to dis­man­tle traf­fick­ing net­works.

The re­port al­so out­lines pro­tec­tions avail­able to vic­tims un­der the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act, in­clud­ing hous­ing and med­ical as­sis­tance.

Mul­ti­ple at­tempts were made to con­tact Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der for com­ment, but he did not re­spond up to press time.