Trinidad and Tobago: Human Trafficking — The Risk of Harm to Victims on Return

Trinidad and Tobago is a twin-island state in the southern Caribbean with a documented and serious problem of human trafficking. This report examines country conditions relevant to the risk of harm facing identified or suspected trafficking victims upon return, drawing on US State Department TIP Reports, United Nations sources, Freedom House, and national reporting. Prepared for asylum and immigration proceedings by Expert Witness | Country Expert Witness Reports | The Human Rights.

1. Introduction

Trinidad and Tobago is a twin-island state in the southern Caribbean with a population of approximately 1.5 million. It has a significant and documented problem with human trafficking, predominantly for purposes of sexual exploitation. The country has consistently appeared in the United States Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report as either a Tier 2 or Tier 2 Watch List country, reflecting persistent gaps in its legal framework and practical responses despite formal progress.

This report examines the nature and scale of human trafficking in Trinidad and Tobago, the documented complicity of state actors in trafficking crimes, the prosecution record, and — critically for immigration purposes — the risk of harm facing identified or suspected trafficking victims upon return to Trinidad and Tobago. It draws on reports by the US State Department, the Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and Freedom House.

2. Scale and Context of Human Trafficking

TIP Tier Ratings 2022–2024

The US Department of State TIP Report is the internationally recognised benchmark assessment of governmental anti-trafficking efforts. Trinidad and Tobago’s tier ratings over recent years are as follows: Tier 2 Watch List in 2022 and 2023 (three consecutive years on the Watch List), upgraded to Tier 2 in 2024. A Tier 2 rating means the government does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so. The 2024 upgrade was noted as reflecting increased efforts during the April 2023 to March 2024 reporting period.

The TIP Report Tier 2 classification is significant in that it indicates ongoing systemic deficiencies. States on Tier 2 Watch List face potential downgrade to Tier 3 (which would trigger US sanctions), and the consistent watch-listing of Trinidad and Tobago over multiple years reflects a pattern of inadequate governmental response rather than isolated or temporary failures.

Victim Demographic Profile 2013–2024

According to data compiled from state records and reported in the Trinidad and Tobago Newsday in November 2024, 102 human trafficking victims were rescued in the eleven-year period from 2013 to 2024. Of these victims, 99% were foreign nationals, with Venezuelan nationals constituting the most significantly affected group. The predominant form of exploitation was sexual exploitation, including forced prostitution and sexual servitude. Most victims were young women and girls.

In the period covered by the 2024 TIP Report (April 2023 to March 2024), authorities investigated 114 sex trafficking cases — a 49% increase on the preceding year — and identified 45 victims of sex trafficking, assisting 42. In the prior year (2023 reporting period), 77 sex trafficking investigations were initiated and 34 victims were assisted.

Profile of Perpetrators

Of 63 individuals charged for trafficking-related offences in the 2013–2024 period, 78% (49 persons) were Trinidad and Tobago nationals; 11 were Venezuelan nationals; and 3 were Chinese nationals. The accused comprised 52 men and 12 women, predominantly aged between 20 and 50 years, with most in their early-to-mid-30s. Two accused were killed; 9 were committed for trial in the High Court; 7 matters were dismissed; 1 pleaded guilty to immigration offences; and the remainder were pending as of the reporting date. These statistics demonstrate that the trafficking of persons in Trinidad and Tobago is predominantly perpetrated by domestic nationals, that the victim population is overwhelmingly foreign, and that the prosecution and conviction record remains extremely weak relative to the scale of the problem.

3. State Complicity in Human Trafficking

Coast Guard Sexual Exploitation of a Trafficking Victim (April 2023)

In April 2023, officers of the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard, while manning a detention facility, sexually exploited and physically assaulted a Venezuelan woman who had been identified as an adult female sex trafficking victim. The officers then abandoned her on the roadside with severe injuries. The victim was denied access to her legal representative and the government sought to deport her. Only after formal legal proceedings were initiated on her behalf did the government recognise her as a trafficking victim and grant her a Minister’s Permit authorising her to remain in the country and to work.

This incident, documented in the 2024 TIP Report and confirmed by the 2025 TIP Report, illustrates the direct nexus between state agents and the perpetration of trafficking-related crimes against the very individuals the state is obligated to protect.

Police Intrusion and Violence Against an NGO Trafficking Advocate (January 2024)

In January 2024, police officers — or persons presenting themselves as police officers — forced entry into the home of a prominent non-governmental organisation (NGO) activist who worked with female adult and child sex trafficking victims, demanding information as to the whereabouts of those victims. The activist sustained physical and psychological injuries and filed a formal complaint with the Police Complaints Authority, which opened an investigation.

This incident demonstrates not only the risk to trafficking victims but also the risk to those who advocate on their behalf. It raises the well-founded inference that perpetrators may use the authority or identity of the police to locate and retrieve victims who have escaped.

Police Officer Convicted of Sex Trafficking (2024)

In 2024, the Trinidad and Tobago courts secured their second-ever conviction under the Trafficking in Persons Act (TIP Act): a police officer was convicted of sex trafficking. This conviction followed the first-ever TIP Act conviction in November 2023, when Anthony Smith was convicted of five counts of child trafficking and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment on each count (noting that Smith had absconded during proceedings by disabling his ankle monitor and remained at large for five months before recapture in February 2024).

The 2024 TIP Report stated that two separate investigations in 2024 involved serving police officers who “remained in their positions without any administrative penalties while the investigations were ongoing”. The Report further noted that “corruption and official complicity in trafficking crimes by some in the police and national security services, including at more senior levels, remained significant concerns, inhibiting law enforcement action”.

4. Prosecution Record and Impunity

The prosecution record in human trafficking cases in Trinidad and Tobago is characterised by impunity. In the eleven-year period from 2013 to 2024, 63 individuals were charged and only 2 convictions were secured under the TIP Act — one in November 2023 and one in 2024. This represents a conviction rate of approximately 3% of those charged over the entire period.

Trinidad and Tobago enacted the Trafficking in Persons Act in 2011, but it was not until 2 November 2023 that the country recorded its first conviction under the legislation. The convicted individual, Anthony Smith, was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment on each of five counts of trafficking a child. His ability to abscond and evade capture for five months while subject to an ankle monitor reveals significant gaps in enforcement capacity.

In 2023, 9 suspected sex traffickers were prosecuted under the TIP Act. Courts introduced Practice Direction No. 12 of 2023 establishing special criminal court procedures for human trafficking matters, and the Counter Trafficking Unit announced plans for a new digital data repository. These measures represent incremental institutional progress but do not alter the fundamental picture of near-total impunity over the period since the TIP Act was enacted.

5. Structural Weaknesses in Victim Identification, Referral, and Protection

The 2024 TIP Report identified specific systemic failures in victim protection. First, inadequate screening of migrant workers “likely resulted in inappropriate penalisation, including deportation of victims of trafficking for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked”. This finding is of particular significance in assessing the risk facing victims who return to Trinidad and Tobago: the state’s own conduct in deporting (rather than protecting) trafficking victims is documented.

Second, the Report found that authorities did not investigate or prosecute any individual in relation to multiple reports of abuse of children in state-run children’s homes, including sex trafficking, sexual abuse, rape, and severe physical abuse resulting in deaths. Parliament declined to approve recommendations for greater oversight of those facilities.

Third, and characterising the overall situation, the Report concluded that victim identification, referral, and protective services, along with interagency coordination and evidence-collection, while improved from the prior reporting period, remained weak and inconsistent. This assessment was repeated across multiple reporting years and reflects an entrenched institutional failure rather than a temporary or remediated gap.

• Inadequate screening of migrant workers leading to deportation of trafficking victims for acts committed as a result of being trafficked
• Failure to investigate or prosecute abuse — including sex trafficking and deaths — in state-run children’s homes
• Parliament declined to approve recommendations for greater oversight of state care facilities
• Weak and inconsistent interagency coordination and evidence-collection across multiple reporting years
• Absence of any effective witness protection programme for trafficking victims

6. Risk of Harm to Victims on Return

Direct Risk from Traffickers

An identified trafficking victim who returns to Trinidad and Tobago faces a real and material risk of harm from traffickers seeking to recover control over, or take retribution against, the victim. Traffickers in Trinidad and Tobago are predominantly nationals of the country (78% of those charged were nationals) who have continuing networks and access to the social environment within which the victim would be living upon return. The documented use of persons presenting as police officers to locate victims (January 2024 incident) demonstrates that traffickers are willing and able to employ intimidation tactics involving state-like authority.

The absence of a comprehensive witness protection programme for trafficking victims in Trinidad and Tobago — a gap noted across successive TIP Reports — means that a returning victim has no meaningful institutional protection from such threats. The near-total impunity enjoyed by traffickers (2 convictions in 11 years) reinforces the power asymmetry between traffickers and victims and the absence of any deterrent effect from law enforcement.

Risk from State Actors

The documented conduct of Coast Guard officers and police in April 2023 and January 2024 respectively establishes that trafficking victims face direct risk of further exploitation or harm at the hands of state agents. The April 2023 incident — in which a trafficking victim was sexually exploited and assaulted by Coast Guard officers at a state detention facility and then abandoned with severe injuries — demonstrates that the state itself cannot be relied upon as a source of protection and may constitute a direct source of harm.

The 2024 TIP Report’s observation that police officers under investigation for trafficking-related offences “remained in their positions without any administrative penalties while the investigations were ongoing” confirms the institutional permissiveness towards trafficking-complicit officers. For a returning victim who was previously exploited with police complicity, the risk of encountering the same or similarly complicit officers upon return is not speculative.

Risk of Criminalisation as a Trafficking Victim

As documented by the 2024 TIP Report, the state’s practice of penalising and deporting trafficking victims for acts committed as a consequence of being trafficked (such as immigration violations or prostitution-related offences) creates an additional risk. A returning victim may be detained, prosecuted, or deported rather than identified and protected. The Report’s finding of “inappropriate penalisation” of victims is directly material to the risk assessment.

Availability of Effective State Protection

Effective state protection is not available in any meaningful sense to trafficking victims in Trinidad and Tobago. The state protection framework is characterised by: documented complicity of state agents in trafficking crimes; a near-total absence of convictions over eleven years; institutional toleration of officers under trafficking investigations; formal but dysfunctional victim identification and referral systems; the deportation of victims for acts arising from their trafficking; and the documented failure to protect children in state care from ongoing sexual exploitation.

The existence of a legal framework — the TIP Act, the Counter Trafficking Unit, and the special court procedures introduced by Practice Direction No. 12 of 2023 — does not constitute effective protection where the documented evidence of its implementation demonstrates systemic failure. International refugee and human rights law requires that state protection be effective in practice, not merely formal.

7. Analytical Assessment

Trinidad and Tobago presents a country conditions profile that is distinctive in the specific context of human trafficking victim claims. Unlike cases involving generalised violence or political persecution, the risks facing trafficking victims upon return in Trinidad and Tobago arise from the documented and ongoing involvement of state agents in trafficking crimes, combined with systemic institutional failure to identify, protect, and prosecute on behalf of victims. The central feature of the country conditions evidence is not the absence of a legal framework — the Trafficking in Persons Act 2011 exists, specialist court procedures have been introduced, and formal referral mechanisms are in place — but the consistent and documented failure of that framework to produce either effective victim protection or meaningful accountability for perpetrators.

First, the evidence of state complicity is direct, concrete, and sourced from the United States Department of State’s own TIP Reports, which are among the most authoritative comparative assessments of governmental anti-trafficking performance. The April 2023 incident involving Coast Guard officers — who sexually exploited and physically assaulted an identified trafficking victim in a state detention facility — is not an isolated allegation but a documented event confirmed across two successive TIP Reports. The January 2024 forced entry into an NGO activist’s home by persons presenting as police officers, and the conviction of a serving police officer for sex trafficking in 2024, together establish a pattern of institutional complicity that is legally significant. For a returning victim, the state cannot function as a source of protection where its own agents are documented participants in the harm.

Second, the prosecution record over eleven years demonstrates a level of impunity that is structurally embedded rather than incidental. Two convictions from 63 persons charged over eleven years represents a 3% conviction rate and confirms that traffickers in Trinidad and Tobago operate with near-total freedom from legal consequence. This also means that the deterrent effect of criminal law — which is central to the state protection model — is effectively absent. The power asymmetry between trafficking networks and their victims is reinforced by the certainty that prosecution is unlikely and conviction is rarer still.

Third, the risk of re-victimisation by the state is independently documented. The 2024 TIP Report’s finding that the state’s inadequate screening has resulted in the inappropriate penalisation and deportation of trafficking victims for acts committed as a consequence of being trafficked is a direct indication that a returning victim may be treated as an offender rather than identified as a victim requiring protection. The failure to investigate abuse in state-run children’s homes — including sex trafficking and deaths — further demonstrates that state care structures offer no meaningful safety.

Taken together, the evidence indicates that a trafficking victim who is returned to Trinidad and Tobago faces a cumulative and material risk of serious harm: from traffickers who retain access and operate with impunity; from state agents who have themselves been documented perpetrators of trafficking-related crimes; and from a state institutional apparatus that has systematically failed to protect victims and has in some cases penalised them instead. In my opinion, the country conditions evidence supports the conclusion that trafficking victims returned to Trinidad and Tobago face a real risk of persecution or serious harm within the meaning of both the 1951 Refugee Convention and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

8. Sources