Trinidad and Tobago keeps Tier 2 watch list ranking on Traffic In Persons Report

THIS country has maintained its position on the Tier 2 WatchList in the 2023 Traffic In Persons (TIP) report.

The report, which was published on Thursday said TT remained in this position for the third consecutive year.

Countries that fall into this category are those whose governments do not fully meet the UN TIP Protocol and the US’ Trafficking Victims Protection (2000) Act’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.

The ranking also means the estimated number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing, and the country is not taking proportional concrete actions; or there is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking from the previous year, including increased investigations, prosecutions, and convictions of trafficking crimes, increased assistance to victims, and decreasing evidence of complicity in severe forms of trafficking by government officials.

In April, after last year’s rating, National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds said former director of international affairs at the ministry Antoinette Lucas-Andrews had been contracted for six months to address this country’s prosecution of human traffickers.

Lucas-Andrews was hired through the US and is expected to review and assess the recommendations of the US State Department TIPS report and advise the government on steps to improve its efforts to combat human trafficking.

Her hiring came after the US Department of State urged the Government to crack down on officials suspected of being involved in human trafficking.

Last year the US assisted the government with three programmes totalling US$5.2 million to address human trafficking issues. The programmes include: the US AID Heal-Empower-Rise Counter Trafficking in Person Project, which cost US$950,000; the CariSECURE 2.0 with an overall budget of US$13 million, of which US$1.2 million is to be shared among TT, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda and St Lucia; and the J/TIP Track4TIP project, whichbegan in 2019 and ended in March.

The rating comes the day after the Caribbean Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (Impacs) issued a media release saying TT was one of one of the Caribbean and Latin American countries where nine minors were rescued from human trafficking by a joint task force between May 22 and 26.

The joint task force was implemented by Impacs and the Central American Integration System (Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana (SICA)).

Two days ago the Law Association of TT was invited to be part of the lawsuit of a 21-year-old Venezuelan migrant who is accusing Coast Guard members of raping and beating her. The woman, who was charged with illegally entering the country, said the offence took place while at the Immigration Detention Centre at the heliport, Chaguaramas.

Head of the Gender Based Violence Unit Snr Supt Claire Guy-Alleyne, at a news conference two weeks ago, said the matter had been investigated and there was no evidence to support the woman’s claims.