THIS country remains at Tier 2 Watch List on the 2023 Traffic In Persons (TIP) report for a third consecutive year. The 95-page report was published on Thursday.
The designation means the government has not met the minimum standards of the UN TIP Protocol and the United States’ Trafficking Victims Protection (2000 )Act, but is making significant efforts to doing so.
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 in persons from the previous year.
Those actions would include 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.
At the opening of a three-day forum focused on trafficking in persons hosted by The Freedom from Slavery Organisation in February, National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds said while TT had done a lot since last year’s report, there was more that could be done.
Newsday called and messaged Hinds on Thursday for comment on the country remaining at Tier 2 Watch List but got no response.
Head of the Counter Trafficking Unit Kimoy Thomas-Williams said she was not yet prepared to comment as she did not read the report.
Hinds in February said: “As part of this country's efforts to counter human trafficking, a national task force against trafficking in persons was established. I was designated chair for the moment. A national plan of action against trafficking in persons, 2021 to 2025, was approved by Cabinet. And this covers for effective identification of victims and witnesses, prevention, protection of survivors and witnesses and prosecution.”
The task force, Hinds said, is focused on educating citizens to better identify victims of human trafficking to be better able to contribute to solving the problem. He added that he would “ensure that Trinidad and Tobago accentuates its efforts in this regard.”
He added that while he was hoping to have improved from 2021, he was comforted that the country maintained the standing.
Other things done by the government was the judicial intervention with the passage of the Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings) Amendment Act which allows those charged with human trafficking to forgo preliminary inquiries and be indicted immediately.
Last year’s report said the government did not take action against senior government officials who were alleged to have been involved in human trafficking in 2020.
The report suggested that the State increase efforts to investigate, prosecute, and convict traffickers, including complicit officials.
In addressing the prosecuting of traffickers, Hinds in April announced that former director of international affairs at his ministry, Antoinette Lucas-Andrews, was contracted for six months to address
