Ke­jan Haynes

Trinidad and To­ba­go has been up­grad­ed to Tier 2 in the Traf­fick­ing in Hu­mans re­port. 

The coun­try on a Tier 2 Watch List for three con­sec­u­tive years pre­vi­ous­ly. How­ev­er, it is not all cause for cel­e­bra­tion as the re­port, which is pub­lished by the US State De­part­ment, says the coun­try still has much work to do.

"The gov­ern­ment did not meet the min­i­mum stan­dards in sev­er­al key ar­eas," the re­port read.  "Cor­rup­tion and of­fi­cial com­plic­i­ty in traf­fick­ing crimes by some in the po­lice and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices, in­clud­ing at more se­nior lev­els, re­mained sig­nif­i­cant con­cerns, in­hibit­ing law en­force­ment ac­tion."

On the pos­i­tive side, the re­port said gov­ern­ment "demon­strat­ed over­all in­creas­ing ef­forts com­pared with the pre­vi­ous re­port­ing pe­ri­od." It said there were "in­creased in­ves­ti­ga­tions and pros­e­cu­tions, en­act­ing leg­is­la­tion to re­move the lengthy pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry process pre­vi­ous­ly con­tribut­ing to sig­nif­i­cant de­lays in the pros­e­cu­tion of traf­fick­ing and oth­er crimes, and in­creas­ing ju­di­cial and po­lice an­ti-traf­fick­ing per­son­nel. "

It praised the first con­vic­tion of An­tho­ny Smith (with­out nam­ing him), a Tu­na­puna busi­ness­man, who was the first per­son to be con­vict­ed as a hu­man traf­fick­er in Trinidad and To­ba­go. 

But an­oth­er neg­a­tive,  the re­port said the gov­ern­ment did not re­port ef­forts to in­ves­ti­gate a vi­o­lent home in­va­sion of an an­ti-traf­fick­ing NGO rep­re­sen­ta­tive by po­lice, or those pos­ing as po­lice." the re­port not­ed. 

In Jan­u­ary, Venezue­lan ac­tivist Yese­nia Gon­za­lez  al­leged she was as­sault­ed by men she claimed were po­lice of­fi­cers.

Some of the rec­om­men­da­tions pro­vid­ed in the re­port in­clude: 

* In­crease proac­tive vic­tim iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, screen­ing, and pro­tec­tion among vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing chil­dren in chil­dren’s homes and schools; mi­grants await­ing de­por­ta­tion at im­mi­gra­tion de­ten­tion cen­ters; and oth­er mi­grants, asy­lum-seek­ers, and refugees, the ma­jor­i­ty of whom are Venezue­lans. 

* Im­prove ev­i­dence col­lec­tion; the qual­i­ty of pros­e­cu­tions; and co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the CTU, pros­e­cu­tors, the ju­di­cia­ry, oth­er agen­cies, and NGOs to in­crease the num­ber of cas­es that pro­ceed to tri­al. 

* En­sure safe­ty and ac­cess for IO and NGO rep­re­sen­ta­tives and im­prove trust be­tween the CTU and these or­ga­ni­za­tions.

* En­sure vic­tims are not in­ap­pro­pri­ate­ly pe­nal­ized sole­ly for un­law­ful acts com­mit­ted as a di­rect re­sult of be­ing traf­ficked.

* Con­tin­ue to re­duce ju­di­cial back­log.

* Re­duce vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to traf­fick­ing by im­ple­ment­ing the pi­lot pro­gram to al­low reg­is­tered mi­grant chil­dren to at­tend school and ex­pand that pro­gram to in­clude all those reg­is­tered. 

* Im­prove the qual­i­ty and con­sis­ten­cy of vic­tim care and in­crease bilin­gual ser­vices.

* Strength­en over­sight, reg­u­la­tion, and in­spec­tions of pri­vate la­bor re­cruit­ment agen­cies and do­mes­tic work lo­ca­tions. 

* In­ves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute do­mes­tic child traf­fick­ing as hu­man traf­fick­ing and not as abuse or oth­er crimes.

* Im­prove su­per­vi­sion of those on tri­al or out on bail. 

* Ful­ly im­ple­ment and con­tin­ue to train of­fi­cials and NGOs on the use of new SOPs for vic­tim care and re­fer­ral.