JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go is mak­ing “re­al progress” in com­bat­ing hu­man traf­fick­ing, with more pros­e­cu­tions, land­mark con­vic­tions and ma­jor law en­force­ment op­er­a­tions, a se­nior Unit­ed States of­fi­cial said yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing at a hu­man traf­fick­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions work­shop at the Po­lice Acad­e­my, Prin­ci­pal Deputy Di­rec­tor of the US De­part­ment of State’s Of­fice to Mon­i­tor and Com­bat Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Rachel Poyn­ter said the coun­try had ini­ti­at­ed 13 sex-traf­fick­ing cas­es, up from 11 the pre­vi­ous year.

Trinidad and To­ba­go re­tained its Tier 2 rank­ing in the most re­cent Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Re­port. The rank­ing means the coun­try does not ful­ly meet the min­i­mum stan­dards for elim­i­nat­ing hu­man traf­fick­ing un­der US leg­is­la­tion but is mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant ef­forts to do so.

Poyn­ter high­light­ed the con­vic­tion of a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer, who was sen­tenced to more than 16 years in prison for hu­man traf­fick­ing in Jan­u­ary last year. The sen­tence sent a clear mes­sage that “no one is above the law”, she said.

In May, the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) charged two peo­ple with 29 of­fences and used pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion or­ders dur­ing the State of Emer­gency in con­nec­tion with an al­leged traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tion. In Au­gust, the CTU’s first op­er­a­tion in To­ba­go re­sult­ed in charges against three peo­ple, Poyn­ter said.

“These achieve­ments mat­ter, and they are due to the hard work of peo­ple like you sit­ting here in this room, the front­line of­fi­cials that are en­coun­ter­ing these crimes first­hand,” she said.

She stressed that hu­man traf­fick­ing in­volves ex­ploit­ing peo­ple for labour or com­mer­cial sex for prof­it, while smug­gling in­volves fa­cil­i­tat­ing un­law­ful en­try in­to a coun­try.

Poyn­ter said the progress re­flect­ed a deep­en­ing part­ner­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the US. Lo­cal of­fi­cers had worked with US coun­ter­parts on in­ves­ti­ga­tions tar­get­ing transna­tion­al crim­i­nal net­works, firearms traf­fick­ers and nar­cotics op­er­a­tions linked to Venezue­lan crim­i­nal groups.

Dozens of of­fi­cers had al­so re­ceived US-sup­port­ed train­ing in in­ves­ti­ga­tions, in­ter­view­ing, as­set for­fei­ture and mon­ey laun­der­ing. About 170 avi­a­tion and bor­der per­son­nel were trained in Sep­tem­ber to iden­ti­fy signs of traf­fick­ing.

How­ev­er, Poyn­ter warned that chal­lenges re­mained, in­clud­ing re­duced fund­ing for pre­ven­tion and vic­tim-pro­tec­tion pro­grammes. She said few­er vic­tims had been iden­ti­fied and as­sist­ed than in pre­vi­ous years, and warned that cor­rup­tion and com­plic­i­ty could hin­der law en­force­ment.

“The Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment stands ready to work with you, with the gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she said, adding that the work­shop would fo­cus on strength­en­ing ev­i­dence col­lec­tion, im­prov­ing vic­tim iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and pro­tec­tion, and re­in­forc­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Videsh Ma­haraj de­scribed hu­man traf­fick­ing as a so­phis­ti­cat­ed form of or­gan­ised crime and a se­ri­ous hu­man rights vi­o­la­tion. He urged par­tic­i­pants to turn their train­ing in­to faster re­fer­rals, stronger ev­i­dence col­lec­tion, bet­ter in­ter-agency co­op­er­a­tion and im­proved vic­tim care.

“The ul­ti­mate met­ric of this work­shop will not be the cer­tifi­cates award­ed at the con­clu­sion, but the tan­gi­ble op­er­a­tional shifts that fol­low,” he said.

CTU head Dane-Marie Mar­shall said traf­fick­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions were com­plex and re­quired in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing, sound in­ves­tiga­tive tech­niques and strong part­ner­ships.