The Undisputed Truth

Human Trafficking in Trinidad and Tobago

At the end of 2008, approximately 600 people were reported missing in Trinidad and Tobago.

These missing people range from the age of 4 to 42 years. The latest missing person is  Shener Joseph, 15 years old, who was last seen leaving Trincity Mall. Why not put that in the Summit handbook?

600 people disappearing in a country of 1.3 million people over just 3-4 years is pretty scary.

According to the FBI, 549,981 people were reported missing in the USA in 2007, but the US of course has a population of over 300 million people.

I’m pretty sure the missing people per capita of Trinidad is one of the highest in the world.

Is such a high-profile crime being carried out in Trinidad though? Human Trafficking? Some of the horrible motives behind human trafficking include : stealing organs, pornography, sex slavery, settlements for drug trades and plain old money. Keeping that in mind and after seeing Hostel and Hostel II, human trafficking is probably the worst thing that could happen to someone, and their family.

We don’t know if it really exists. If it does, then there is some credence behind the whole children found in a container story, if not, then a serial killer or group of serial killers are on the loose in Trinidad.

What I do know however is there is a relation among the drug trade, unprotected coasts, prostitution and these missing people.

The first two are no-brainers, but prostitution in Trinidad is probably the most bold-faced crime being committed in the world. Unlike some states in the U.S like Nevada, and other countries like the Netherlands, Israel, Australia, etc. prostitution is illegal in Trinidad, and it always has been.

As a teenager I always got excited to see one or two suspicious ads in the personals section of the newspapers which suggested that sex services were being offered. In recent years, coincidentally when missing persons numbers began spiking like crazy, the personals section of the newspapers suddenly is an obvious sex marketplace. Brothels are also now quite obviously open all over Trinidad.

Right now you can get the name and number of between 10-20 “massage” parlours, “sexy girls”, or exotically named “escorts” in the classifieds of the daily newspapers in Trinidad and Tobago on any given day. In other words,  these people are advertising something illegal, plain and bold in the newspapers, and the Trinidad police aren’t doing a damn thing about it.

Apart from that brothels are as common as KFCs in every major area of Trinidad. The latest I heard of is one on south Trinidad by the name of “CLASSIC SEAMEN” ( NO I AM NOT JOKING). Sources tell me that there are 6 Columbian women and 4 Guyanese women there, most likely in the country illegally, and all this exists with a Police station a stone’s throw away.

What if people are kidnapped in this country and forced to work in these brothels? What if they are kidnapped and sent to Columbia or Guyana as payment for the women no doubt being trafficked here from Columbia or Guyana? We would never know the answers to these questions because the Trinidad Police is a patent failure. The only time you may hear about raids on these brothels or the interception of illegal immigrants entering the country on coasts of Trinidad (yeah believe or not we have a Coast Guard) is when someone forgot to pay them off.

The police in Trinidad need to shut up about human trafficking, because everyone including themselves know they do not care, and if they did, they wouldn’t know what to do even if a person named Mr. Human Trafficker were to walk in a police station and turn himself in.

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