The 2023 Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons (TIP) Re­port, launched on Thurs­day by US Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken, not on­ly high­lights T&T’s con­sis­tent short­com­ings in tack­ling this transna­tion­al crime but the chron­ic fail­ures of this coun­try’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

The fact that the Unit­ed States De­part­ment of State (US­DOS) has main­tained T&T’s Tier 2 sta­tus for the third con­sec­u­tive year should not be in­ter­pret­ed sim­ply as a lack of progress but as warn­ing of a pos­si­ble down­grade if ur­gent steps are not tak­en to ad­dress the many chal­lenges high­light­ed in the re­port.

Gov­ern­ment should take very se­ri­ous­ly this re­minder that it is not ful­ly meet­ing the min­i­mum stan­dards for elim­i­nat­ing traf­fick­ing and pour more re­sources and time in­to ef­forts to do so.

The most sting­ing in­dict­ment in this lat­est TIP Re­port is that al­though sev­er­al po­lice and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials have been un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion for traf­fick­ing of­fences, to date, not a sin­gle traf­fick­er has been con­vict­ed.

There is ab­solute­ly no way our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty au­thor­i­ties can put a pos­i­tive spin on this. The in­for­ma­tion in the re­port is ev­i­dence of a wor­ry­ing state of af­fairs

The re­port states: “Cor­rup­tion and of­fi­cial com­plic­i­ty in traf­fick­ing crimes, in­clud­ing at se­nior lev­els, re­mained sig­nif­i­cant con­cerns, in­hibit­ing law en­force­ment ac­tion. Vic­tim iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, re­fer­ral, and ser­vices re­mained weak and in­con­sis­tent, and in­ter-agency co­or­di­na­tion was poor.”

Sev­er­al en­ti­ties— the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit, Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion, T&T Coast Guard and Ju­di­cia­ry — share blame for this sor­ry state of af­fairs. None of them is like­ly to of­fer any cred­i­ble de­fence to the TIP Re­port’s claims of “cor­rup­tion and of­fi­cial col­lu­sion in traf­fick­ing crimes.”

The im­me­di­ate re­sponse from all of them should be to pub­licly ac­count to cit­i­zens for all the prob­lems high­light­ed and ex­plain their con­sis­tent fail­ure to ad­dress this mat­ter, which not on­ly taints T&T’s glob­al rep­u­ta­tion but puts the pop­u­la­tion at risk.

Of par­tic­u­lar con­cern is the on­go­ing col­lu­sion be­tween law en­force­ment and crim­i­nal groups - one of the worst-kept se­crets in this coun­try. With lit­tle risk of ar­rest or pros­e­cu­tion, they con­duct their crim­i­nal trans­ac­tions and com­mu­ni­ca­tions in well-pa­tro­n­ised broth­els and en­ter­tain­ment spots across the coun­try.

As has been proven by the few well-pub­li­cised raids and ar­rests that have tak­en place, it is not so much a lack of aware­ness of the per­pe­tra­tors and their modes of op­er­a­tion but rather the will­ing­ness by too many in key po­si­tions to look the oth­er way and ig­nore in­tel­li­gence re­ports that can lead to sig­nif­i­cant break­throughs in crack­ing down on this il­lic­it trade.

It doesn’t help that fur­ther along in the process, cas­es have been gath­er­ing dust in the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) and oth­er arms of the Ju­di­cia­ry.

The rec­om­men­da­tions in the TIP Re­port should be fol­lowed. Ef­forts to in­ves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute traf­fick­ers, in­clud­ing pub­lic of­fi­cials found to be com­plic­it in such crimes, must be in­creased. The laws are there to im­pose harsh penal­ties, in­clud­ing sig­nif­i­cant prison terms.

There is al­so a need for “in­creased proac­tive vic­tim iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, screen­ing and pro­tec­tion among vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing chil­dren in chil­dren’s homes and schools, mi­grants, asy­lum-seek­ers, and refugees.”

This lat­est TIP Re­port should be tak­en as a warn­ing that a down­grade to Tier 3 is a strong pos­si­bil­i­ty. Ur­gent ac­tion is re­quired.