T&T FALLING SHORT

Concerns have been raised about reduced funding for human trafficking prevention and victim protection in Trinidad and Tobago, with one US official warning that fewer victims were being identified and assisted and that investigations into suspected official complicity remained stalled.

Principal Deputy Director Rachel Poynter of the US Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking, raised the concerns yesterday during the opening of a human trafficking investigative training workshop at the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service Academy in St James.

Poynter said screening of vulnerable populations remained limited, reducing opportunities to identify victims and perpetrators and increasing the risk of trafficking victims being penalised for unlawful acts committed under coercion.