GML ENTERPRISE DESK
Seventh Day Adventist pastor Clive Dottin says over the past five years there has been an upswing in human trafficking in T&T but as a society he says we are always in denial hence the apparent inaction to the growing problem.
According to Dottin the stark reality is that as long as there is a drug trade which is not being properly managed, you will have human trafficking.
Speaking recently to the GML Enterprise team, Dottin said: “It starts off with using the women as couriers and sometimes the women are aware that where they will end up after dropping the drugs will be prostitution because they have to live.”
However, he says, sometimes the women are not always aware what was in store for them and they are simply “promised jobs, apartments and when it’s too late they realise that they are victims of human trafficking.”
He recalled two recent visits, one to an Eastern Caribbean country where he says he was told there was a nightclub with a sparkling name and girls from all over the Caribbean, including T&T, were working.
On another trip to Curacao he was told of a big club where young women from Colombia, Santo Domingo and the Caribbean were working. “Many of them claim they are victims of human trafficking but he says they just don’t know how to get out,” he said.
The scary part of what was happening, he says, was that more and more young people are being wooed into illegal activity.
“There is an alarming phenomenon in Trinidad of the teenage drug dealer,” he added.
Dottin says he has received reports that where there are two drug dealers on a street, they mentor two teenage drug dealers, who in turn, are close to teenage girls, and the girls get pulled into the maze.
Only recently he said a father came to him and told him that he was concerned that security officials may be involved in human trafficking.
When he asked the man why he said that the man told him he went to a certain place in north Trinidad looking for a female relative and he saw lots of young girls who were drugged. The man told him he was lucky to get his relative out since security at the place was extremely tight.
Dottin estimates that there are 150,000 people in this country who depend directly or indirectly on illegal activity, and according to him there are three levels of involvement. Those who are employed and making an extra buck, some who are under-employed and need more money and the most vulnerable are the young girls and boys who are on the streets.
These groups, according to Dottin, are easy prey for the drug dealers who invariably are also involved in the gun trade because they have to protect huge sums of money, “we talking billions.”
The Caribbean Task Force estimates that the drug trade in the region was valued at just over US$50 billion and the worldwide estimate was over US$600 billion. “It’s a huge amount of assets to protect. What fuels a lot of the gun trade was the protection of the drug trade. The turfs are being split up, so you will have human trafficking,” he added.
With more young people being lured into the den of those whom he calls the “narcotic vampires,” Dottin is now urging the authorities to do more to stop the trade in guns and drugs. It is only when the problem was addressed at the source, he says, that the problem of human trafficking could be wiped out.