Silent victims

By COREY CONNELLY Sunday, July 26 2015

In the illegal sex trade, skin colour, age and physical built determine the amount of money a Latin woman is able to command from her clients in Trinidad and Tobago.

Sasha (not her real name) learnt this the hard way after she was scolded recently by her “boss” for developing what he called “lumps” (becoming overweight), during an impromptu meeting with other Latin women at a “club” in Port-in-Spain, several weeks ago.

At age 31, Sasha is considered a veteran in the illegal sex trade. With a mane of thick, black hair and a seductive walk, Sasha oozes sex appeal but she is visibly heavier than the other women at the club. The clothes she wore during a Sunday Newsday visit to the establishment recently was also less revealing when compared to outfits worn by the other women.

And although not self-conscious about her appearance, Sasha knows she must deal with her her weight and the impact on her physical attributes, or face dire consequences, which would more than likely involve being sent back to her homeland.

A dark-skinned Columbian national, Sasha says her skin colour, age and somewhat stocky built, place her at a disadvantage in terms of earning capacity. She says she is saving money to pay for plastic surgery and silicone implants in Venezuela, where she has worked as a prostitute. She says she has also worked in Brazil, Suriname and her native country.

Sasha said the money she made in Venezuela was far less than what she was receiving in Trinidad.

She has been in TT since March, having come from Venezuela via a boat trip to Icacos.

“By boat from Venezuela is much cheaper and less risky than by air. Some can pay up to US$100 to get here,” said Sasha, who left her two children in the care of her mother in Columbia.

“The work is exhausting and I cannot leave the place before 4 am. I have to keep the customers drinking,” she said.

Sasha prefers to work in Port-of-Spain as opposed to San Fernando “because there is more competition (in San Fernando) and the club owners are more severe.”

“Here (Port-of-Spain), they give me two days off in the week and what I earn with clients is all mine,” she says.

Delia (not her real name), who is in her late 20s, is another Columbian national, hailing from Peralta, an area known for large-scale coffee production. She says she has worked as a prostitute in Columbia and in Spain. Here in TT, she also works at the Port-of-Spain “club”. She says she was drawn to T T because of its status as an oil-rich nation.

“I had heard about the economic prosperity and I am much better off than in Columbia,” Delia says, revealing that she sends money back to Columbia every month to support her daughter who is in school.

The rates the women earn vary depending on the needs of the client.

A source exposed to the trade told Sunday Newsday that a client usually pays as much as TT$300 for a 20-minute sex romp with a woman at a “club,” a quarter of which covers the rental for a room.

The source said if a client booked the services of a woman for a day, he will have to fork out as much as TT$1,200.

He said ‘High-end’ Latin women, who typically have wealthy clients by way of “escort” establishments, can be retained for as much as TT$2,000 a night.

Alana Wheeler, Deputy Director of the Counter-Trafficking Unit (CTU), could not give a percentage for the number of women entering the country to work as prostitutes as opposed to those who were duped through human trafficking for any given year.

She thinks it may be plausible to collect such statistics based on persons who were arrested by the police for illegal entry.

“But this is in no way comparable to those who have been smuggled in,” Wheeler told Sunday Newsday.

One activist, working now for several years in the field of human trafficking, believes that not enough was being done to help Latin women who were being brought into TT for the illicit sex trade. The woman, speaking on the condition of strict anonymity, said she had lost hope.

“I have taken a backburner approach because it was like I was going in vain,” she said of the trials she encountered in her work, alleging that many influential people in TT were involved in human trafficking. She said the group with which she works had retained the services of a private investigator to review the terms and conditions under which the women had entered the country.

“Based on his findings, that is why we are silent now. The group is still continuing the investigations but many people have decided that there is no hope. That is the reality that we have to face. It is a life and death situation that you really don’t want to be playing with because plenty big people involved,” she claimed.

She noted that though legislation was in place to address human trafficking, implementation was a serious problem.

“Yes, there are one or two people who have been caught for human trafficking but how important do the police really treat with this issue. The door is there but implementation is important,” she said.

The woman said the police had a crucial role to play.

“Police need to interview these individuals rather than just apprehending them and charging them. They need to really track the reasons why they came here because most of these people are really victims,” she said.

The women arrested by police are usually held at the Immigration Detention Centre (IDC) in Aripo.

“Most of them will just get a two-year sentence and are then sent back to their country,” she added, noting that the women’s living arrangements were unclear.

“I recall one was telling a story that they used to get free clothes and food but some of them are not allowed to go out and take phone calls. One told me that she got a meal a day and that person was crying and begging to leave. She was Columbian,” she recalled.

Describing human trafficking as organised crime, the activist stated:

“Not everybody can get up in the morning and say they want to do human trafficking. It is very organised. These people have a co-ordinated link. Yuh know how the drug trade runs, is that kind of trade. It coincides with the drug trade.”

A Sunday Newsday investigation has uncovered that women like Sasha and Delia are among hundreds of young Latin American women who have been lured to Trinidad and Tobago’ over the years by operators of a thriving human trafficking industry.

Investigations have revealed that Venezuelan women have become especially easy prey given that country’s worsening socio-economic status. The women are usually brought into the country via the southern peninsula, specifically Icacos, Cedros and other neighbouring fishing villages

An official at the Customs and Immigration Building in Cedros has given an estimate of at least 100 persons arriving at that port every week but noted that processing does not categorise these entries in any way and that several of them do come to shop and also visit relatives in the southern peninsula.

CTU’s Wheeler has said that over the two years of the Unit’s establishment, some 20 trafficking victims have been rescued, 25 percent of which started off as smuggling cases and that 13 persons were charged with human trafficking in those incidents.

“What we also found out is that of the 20 cases, the majority were sexual exploitation and that would be Venezuelan, Dominican Republic and Columbian nationals,” she said.