Team up on trafficking

THOUGH this country still, lamentably, does not meet the minimum standards set out by the US Department of State for the elimination of human trafficking, our upgrade this week from a watch list to Tier 2 status in the annual Trafficking in Persons Report is a step in the right direction.

It is particularly gratifying given our downgrade to watch list status only a few years ago, and the fact that we faced the embarrassing possibility of sliding further to dreaded Tier 3 status – which would have cut off certain types of funding – last year. A one-time waiver saved the day then.

A series of initiatives have turned things around, according to the report published on June 24.

These include more investigations, legislation to remove the lengthy preliminary inquiry process, and more judicial and police anti-trafficking personnel. Increased funding and infrastructure, such as shelters and new quarters for the Counter-Trafficking Unit, were also cited.

“The government demonstrated overall increasing efforts,” says the report.

But there remains a long way to go.

While the document lauds the historic conviction and sentencing of a trafficker, it also took note of the shambolic developments in the wake of that trial, when the culprit, found guilty in absentia, disabled his ankle bracelet and was only recaptured months later.

At the very top of the report’s assessment of conviction measures is this grim assessment: “The government increased prosecution efforts, but official complicity remained a significant concern.”

We can only go upwards from here.

Last week’s passing of legislation to authorise polygraphing, drug testing and collating biometric data on members of the protective services has the potential to significantly assist in weeding out bad-apple cops.

Yet that is just one aspect of the problem.

With refugees and migrants, alongside displaced people and marginalised communities, most at risk of trafficking, there is also a pressing need to handle the Venezuelan migrant crisis far better and to deepen community-building efforts to bridge divides that stand in the way of the reporting and interdiction of traffickers.

To this end, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)’s friendly football tournament, held on June 23, is the kind of activity we encourage. That exercise, held at the Eddie Hart Recreation Ground, Tacarigua, saw refugees and asylum-seekers from countries such as Cameroon, Cuba and Venezuela rub shoulders with locals and diplomats, playing a sport which, like the trafficking scourge, pays no heed to borders.

“Trafficking is the very definition of a problem that no one nation can solve alone,” noted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week. “We have to work not only with governments, but along with the private sector, civil society, multinational organisations, citizens and survivors.”