LAW ENFORCEMENT IN THE FACILITATION OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN THE CARIBBEAN REGION
May 10, 2023Black Labour Market Assessment in Canada
May 10, 2023USD 300.00 sale of a 15-year-old child from Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobago
Report by:
Dr. Justine C. Pierre (Human Trafficking Researcher), assisted by Nayrobis Rodríguez
During our eight-month Human Trafficking investigation in the Caribbean region conducted in 2019, we discovered that there was a higher demand for Sex and Prostitution services in Trinidad and Tobago when compared with other English-speaking countries in CARICOM. Our research took us down many dark roads and we interviewed many dangerous people, some of whom believed that what they were doing (Human Trafficking) was not a crime but just another business activity supplying a need for their clients. To understand more about the Human Trafficking industry in the Caribbean we had to take our investigation outside of the CARIFORUM region into places such as Venezuela, the Dutch Antilles, Columbia, Panama, Mexico, Brazil, and Chile. This article is about our understanding of Human Trafficking between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago derived from our investigation.
A significant purpose of our research was to verify some of the stories and examine the local socioeconomic and other enabling conditions for the existence of human trafficking as well as to investigate why many of the victims in Trinidad and Tobago came from a specific area in Venezuela called the State of Sucre. Interviews with Trafficking victims in Trinidad and Tobago indicate that some knew each other from Venezuela, had gone to the same school, played on the same sports team, and most importantly, came from the same region. From the research, it was apparent that there is a lack of awareness of human trafficking, especially in the rural and interior areas of countries in the CARIFORUM region. However, the focus of the relevant authorities in combatting Human Trafficking is concentrated in the urban areas. Our investigation further revealed that 63% of the human trafficking victims came from the rural and interior regions of Venezuela. In the case of Trinidad and Tobago, 43% of the Venezuelan human trafficking victims came from a specific locality in Venezuela.
Result of Interviews
Our team conducted 27 separate interviews with individuals from the State of Sucre and other neighbouring states.
(Sucre State is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. The state capital is Cumaná. Sucre State covers a total area of 11,800 km2 and, as of the 2011 census, had a population of 896,921),
We interviewed key stakeholders such as teachers, store owners, students, boat captains, brothel workers, the unemployed, authorities and officials. And other alleged traffickers, smugglers, and intermediaries in the Human Trafficking ‘industry’ supply victims to Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean, the United States of America and Canada.
The State of Sucre, Venezuela:
Due to its proximity to Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago is now one of the leading destinations for Trafficking in Persons from Venezuela’s Northern and Central parts. Although official data on the number of persons trafficked between these two countries is limited, the authors of this report estimate that close to 4,000 victims in the Güiria area only have been sold by Venezuelan Human Trafficking cartels to Trinidad and Tobago over the last four to six years.
Case of the Missing Venezuelan Teenager
Our investigation led us to the father of a missing Venezuelan teenager who had made a formal complaint to the authorities in Venezuela alleging that his daughter had been sold by a network that trafficked women to Trinidad and Tobago.
The young child was 15 years old, named Omarlys, at the time when she drowned at night in the Boca Dragón Strait, an area of the sea between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago. If she had survived, her fate would have been sealed as a victim of Human Trafficking and a prostitute in Trinidad and Tobago.
Photo of the Bocas del Dragón Strait Trinidad and Tobago
According to Britannica, the Bocas del Dragón Channel (otherwise called Dragons Mouths) is located in the southeastern Caribbean Sea between Point Peñas (the eastern end of the Paria Peninsula) in northeastern Venezuela) and the northwestern extremity of the island of Trinidad. The Channel is about 20 km wide, is one of two separating Trinidad from mainland South America; the other is the Serpent’s Mouth, located off the island’s southwestern coast. Between these passages lies the broad Gulf of Paria. Dragons Mouths is named for its many teeth-like rocky islets, and both these islets and the strong current of the channel have long been dangerous to navigation.
Omarlys travelled with her cousin, a 16-year-old girl named Unyerlin, who also drowned with her. Both teenagers had been captured by one of the many Human Trafficking Cartels that operate from Güiria.
Photo of Giuria, Venezuela
Founded in 1767, the city of Guiria, a small fishing town in western Venezuela, is the capital city of Valdez Municipality in the State of Sucre. Guiria is where the military campaign for South American independence set out for Upper Peru. It was also a starting point of the 1901 Venezuelan Civil War (Revolución Libertadora). Güiria is the state’s third-largest urban centre, with approximately 40,000. It is an important harbour and is the only one in Venezuela located on the open Atlantic Ocean rather than the Caribbean Sea. It is also the economic centre of the Paria Peninsula, owing to its proximity to the natural gas fields in the Gulf of Paria, where several state and private companies have exploration projects.
This is the La Playita port. Some boats leave with people who travel illegally to Trinidad and Tobago, including women who will be trafficked and sold as prostitutes. (Photo in 2019 by Nayrobis Rodríguez)
During our investigation, it was revealed that the young girls were aboard a small vessel called the ‘Jhonaili José’ travelling with 37 other people who also drowned. Small boats are used to transport traffickers and the trafficked victims out of small villages into larger vessels to be transported to Europe, Asia, and North America. The boat was heading directly to Chaguaramas, Trinidad and Tobago on that fateful night.
The young woman and her cousin left their house that night. According to relatives, Omarlys had told her mother that she would do homework at a friend’s house. She had no suitcase or any of her belongings with her. She never returned home.
Omar Velásquez, Omarlys’ father, his wife and sister had been searching for the teenage girls, who suddenly disappeared one night from their home in Cumaná, a small capital city of Sucre State, on the west coast of Venezuela, six hours away from Güiria. It was rumoured that the girls were kidnapped on the street near their home.
Omar found out about his daughter’s death through social media a week later.
Even though Omarlys’ family was poor, they lived in a relatively safe neighbourhood in the West. Omarlys attended the local public school in the area. She was a good student who loved sports and loved to debate. She was obedient and wanted to become a nurse after graduation.
A Facebook profile of a woman named Maria had posted the girls’ names, reporting them as ‘missing’ while travelling on a boat which led to Omar’s discovery of the possible demise of his daughter and his niece.
With great despair and little money in his pockets, Omarlys’ father and his wife travelled to Güiria, hoping to hear from their daughter and niece. Upon reaching the town, Mr. Velasquez was confronted by reality when told that his daughter had been sold to a human trafficking network for USD$300. It seemed that she, along with four other young women, had spent a week in a ‘shelter’ operated by the traffickers, where they had been given food and drink while awaiting their trip to Trinidad.
Mr. Velásquez tried desperately to report this state of affairs to the government authorities, convinced that tricks and lies had induced the girls to leave since his daughter did not even own a passport. In attempting to report this incident to the police, he and his wife were met with obstacles that included death threats against them. There was no investigation, and no one was ever charged in respect of these missing girls.
Mr. Valesquez stated during the interview, “They only threaten us and tell us not to ask anything.”
Omarlys’ father was also informed that in Güiria, there were people in high authority who were also linked to the human trafficking business.
A few weeks later, Omarlys’ father discovered that his daughter and niece were taken from Cumaná to Güiria allegedly by a man known only as “Tico”, who had had strong Trinidadian and Asian connections. It was further alleged that Tico was a middleman who recruited girls for an Asian human trafficking syndicate located in Trinidad and Tobago and Brazil that specialised in the kidnapping, trafficking and sale of young victims. It was allegedly at Tico’s house that the two young cousins and three other young women had stayed for five days awaiting that ill-fated trip to Trinidad.
Tico, whose real name was “Hector”, was also among the list of those who disappeared in the shipwreck of the Jhonaili José boat. During interviews with his sister Elaiza, she denied that “Tico” was part of a human trafficking network. But she however, confirmed that the teens stayed for five days at his home.
She stated:
“Tico was friends with a woman named Maria, who asked him to please give accommodation to these five girls who would travel to Trinidad and Tobago.”
María is the name of the woman who had posted on Facebook the names of the young women who disappeared at sea.
Elaiza insisted that her brother Tico “only did a favour” by giving them a place to stay and some food. She said that the young women in his house knew that they would travel to Trinidad for employment at a specific restaurant and nightclub. However, Tico had travelled with the teenagers on the same boat that would take them to the port of Chaguaramas.
Only eight persons survived out of the 39 people who set sail in the Jhonaili José on the night of April 23, 2019. By all accounts, the Venezuelan State did not participate in the search for the castaways. The authorities in Güiria had insisted that they did not have optimal boats or fuel to search. Fishermen rescued the eight survivors from the nearby town.
In this case, nine people were arrested and accused of human trafficking by the Public Ministry in Venezuela, including the boat captain and a sports teacher. These men allegedly recruited women to hand them over to a prostitution ring in Trinidad and Tobago. Two national guards were arrested and accused of participating in the trafficking network.
However, despite complaints from the victims’ families, countless protests, and the support of Carlos Valero and Robert Alcalá, two deputies from the National Assembly run by the Opposition, Nicolás Maduro’s administration made no progress in investigating the network of human trafficking nor were they able to offer answers about the search for the bodies at sea.
Over one year after the shipwreck in the town of Güiria, the illegal departures of small boats with minimal to no safety conditions continue to set sail with passengers travelling to Trinidad and Tobago. They want to escape poverty in Venezuela and have an opportunity to work and earn in foreign currency to send money back to their relatives. However, these economic victims continue to be trafficked in exchange for food, medical supplies, household items and money.
Despite the COVID-19 Pandemic, human trafficking continues unabated, and young women who do not know that their destiny is prostitution are still being trafficked to the Twin Island Republic. Our research on Human Trafficking in the Region indicated that Trinidad and Tobago have the highest demand for sex and prostitution services, estimated at 81 per cent. However, unlike other countries such as Jamaica and Antigua and Barbuda, where Human Trafficking is on the decline due to high public advocacy by these governments, the demand for sex and prostitution in Trinidad and Tobago is driven by a higher than usual local consumption rate, especially in the Borough of Chaguanas.
Information about the author:
Dr. C. Justine Pierre https://dpbglobal.com/dr-justine-pierre/ is a Labour Market, Migration and Human Trafficking researcher located in Canada and the Caribbean Region. He was the team leader on the recently concluded; CARIFORUM/CARICOM Human Trafficking research project, which took place in the Caribbean in 2019. https://today.caricom.org/2019/07/29/cariforum-embarks-on-critical-human-trafficking-study/