PETTY POLITICS AS CHILD SEX RING FLOURISHES

AN 11-year-old sex-trafficked girl was rescued by the police eight months ago.

Eleven!

The victim’s pimps included a woman, who is the mother of young children and wife of a co-flesh hustler.

The police raid at a retrofitted house was a rare one, because of “corruption and official complicity,” to use the term applied by the United States Department of State.

In other words, senior police officers are on the take to turn a blind eye to the twin plagues of trafficking and sex trade.

The pre-teenage and other rescued victims in that police crackdown were malnourished, unhygienic, and had few personal possessions.

Two of those saved from further sexual exploitation were Venezuelans, who were shipped by hustlers through the porous southwestern coastline.

There is an epidemic of vulnerable Venezuelan women and girls being held in captivity, and sexually, physically and mentally abused.

Many are teenagers with bare education, most lack identification and travel documents, and speak only minimal English.

The International Organisation for Migration, a United Nations agency, quoted a mother of three as saying: “In trying to escape, I ended up getting arrested.”

She said she and others were forced to become sex workers when all she wanted was “to provide for my children.”

Another international agency, The Borgen Project, said in a recent report that “refugees continue to come into the country in large numbers and traffickers continue to prey on them.”    

Still another body, Insight Crime, said that “Trinidad and Tobago’s illicit sex trade is characterised by particularly high demand…”

Recruits are sourced from such Venezuelan coastal states as Sucre and Delta Amacuro with promises of a better quality of life and shipped in through Cedros, Icacos, Erin, Moruga and Chaguaramas.

They are held “in hotels or clandestine houses,” and “work in Trinidad and Tobago’s illicit sex trade.”

A Jamaican-based investigation reported that T&T has “the highest demand for sexual services and prostitution” in the Caribbean.

A 2019 study by Caricom said corruption involving State and law enforcement officials facilitated human trafficking, with some victims becoming “sex slaves and prostitutes.”

Then, there is the much-cited 2022 US Trafficking in Persons Report, which, by the way, was released last July, and which makes damning declarations about the high incidence of the crime in T&T.

The compelling report essentially said the authorities have made nominal gains, but the crackdown is crippled by weak legislation, ineffective policies, lack of implementation, and widespread police corruption.

The US referred to a study that said 10 per cent of the police service is “under active investigation for misconduct, including trafficking.”

That is more than 700 police officers.

At the time of the investigation, no officer had been prosecuted.

So the lawmen are on taxpayer-funded suspensions.

Sex and other exploitation of trafficked persons remain rife, victims are traumatised and they fear reprisals “from well-connected traffickers.”

The startling report got new life in Parliament last Friday, and, instead of promises of prompt and effective remedies to the scourge, it has sparked a petty political tiff.

The senseless squabble has only served to offend and distress the entire nation.

There continues to be vicious exploitation, even dehumanisation, alongside crooked and incompetent police officers and other authority figures.

Is it any surprise that many have concluded that T&T is not a real place?