350 Human Trafficking Victims Rescued by Interpol In Saint Lucia, The Caribbean and Latin America

A two-year investigation has led to the arrest of 22 people involved in a human trafficking network and the release of 350 men, women and children forced into slave-like labour and prostitution in several Caribbean and Latin American nations, including Saint Lucia.

The announcement was made by the international police organization, Interpol, on Monday, but there has been no official word here on what really happened in Saint Lucia.

According to CemKolcu of the Interpol’s human trafficking unit, the 350 people were found working in bars, night clubs, gold mines, factories and open-air markets; some of them in remote areas from which they could not escape.

Operation Libertad (Freedom) was funded by the Canadian government and required coordinated raids in the following 13 Caribbean and continental islands and nations: Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Barbados, Curacao, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Belize, Brazil, Guyana and Venezuela.

The operation was directed from Barbados, with the support of Interpol command centers in France and Argentina.

Interpol’s Executive Director of Police Services, Tim Morris, highlighted the “human story” behind the numbers.

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He also told the BBC that conditions in Guyana were “particularly horrific” as, there they found women forced to work as prostitutes close to gold mines in remote areas.

In Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Interpol officers found bosses had stripped Asian trafficking victims of their passports, money and transportation leaving them no chance to escape.

Morris explained it is “widespread crime,” and one that is difficult to tackle because many “don’t acknowledge they are being exploited.”

What happens to trafficking victims once they are rescued “depends on the particular person’s circumstance and often on the country’s resources,” Morris said.

They can be taken care of in special facilities, released or sent back to their countries.

It is still unclear how many persons were arrested and charged in Saint Lucia or how many victims were saved in the local leg of the two-year regional anti-human trafficking operation.