“I AM not a victim. I survived. I am a superwoman.”
This was how a 21-year-old Venezuelan woman, who alleges she was beaten and raped by Coast Guard personnel at the Heliport in Chaguaramas in May, has described her ordeal while speaking with the Express yesterday through her attorney Criston J Williams.
She said her purpose right now was to live her life to the best of her ability and to try to do what she can to ensure that no one else endured what she went through.
Williams, who heads Quantum Legal, said he, too, shared this goal.
“I was able to spend a day with the young lady in question on Saturday, and she was able to tell me her story in a more personal way. I heard her and was moved. It’s a very powerful story, and I admire how she’s trying to move forward despite all that has transpired. She expressed gratitude to us because we were able to show her a more beautiful and positive side of Trinidad and Tobago. And after hearing and understanding her perspective, we too at Quantum Legal want to do all that we can to ensure that nothing like this repeats itself in this country,” Williams said.
He noted that, last week, due to the work of his firm, in collaboration with the Themis Foundation headed by Yesenia Gonzalez, the 21-year-old woman was able to be moved from the care of the State.
She is currently being housed at a new safe house, under the care of a third party.
While he did not criticise the State, Williams noted that when his client was in their care, she was kept in a guarded room and was not allowed to leave or walk about.
She also did not have any change of clothing outside of what she came with, he said.
This was why he ensured that one of the first things that the 21-year-old got when she was transferred was a care package with clothing, toiletries, and food.
“The little things in life we take for granted. This woman was in the care of the State, after allegedly going through a harrowing ordeal. Circumstances of her detention aside, she was still a victim. And the State did not treat her as well as they should have, is what I will say. Now through the collaborative work, she is still in a safe house, and will still make herself available to any process that may be deemed necessary, but now she has freedoms that she did not have prior and better access to the daily things that we take for granted, things that were not provided or afforded to her while in the custody of the State,” Williams added.
Over the last few days, the 21-year-old was able to visit areas in Chaguaramas and Port of Spain, and was treated to a breakfast at Crews Inn, and even taken to various beach-front areas.
She was said to be in good spirits, and enjoying the opportunities that she now has to experience this country from a different perspective.
Background
Initially, it was reported that the woman had escaped from the Chaguaramas Heliport, but court documents filed by her attorneys last month indicated that she was taken from the Heliport by officers there and dropped off on the side of the Western Main Road in Chaguaramas.
The woman claimed that while detained at the facility, she was assaulted and beaten by three Coast Guard officers – two of the officers held her down while the other raped her.
Last month, the team of attorneys, headed by Williams and including Bernadette Arneaud and Shivanand Mohan, were successful in having the High Court grant a writ of habeas corpus in favour of their client.
The matter is expected to be recalled today.
The application was made given that the attorneys were fearful that the woman would be repatriated to Venezuela after she was eventually detained again by Central Division police at a bar in Freeport on May 26 and taken to the Immigration Detention Centre (IDC) in Aripo, East Trinidad.
In the initial writ, the woman was removed from IDC and taken into the care of the Ministry of National Security’s Counter Trafficking Unit (CTU) who told her attorneys that she was not requesting legal representation.
But the lawyers nonetheless filed their habeas corpus application at the High Court.
It was called before Justice Jacqueline Wilson who granted the applications.
How could she have ‘escaped” or “left’?
It was at the Joint Select Committee (JSC) hearing on Human Rights on May 26 that executive director of the Caribbean Centre for Human Rights Denise Pitcher disclosed that the Venezuelan woman had gone missing after she reported being sexually abused at the Immigration station at the Heliport.
Pitcher also called for a probe into the facility.
The Heliport was set up in 2020 as an assessment centre for individuals found illegally entering T&T’s borders, and as a Covid-19 quarantine centre for those illegal immigrants.
At the JSC, CTU director Dr Samantha Chaitram confirmed the “escape” and “absconding” of the 21-year-old woman.
DCP (Intelligence and Investigations) Curt Simon told the JSC that police enquiries into the report of abuse was pending, as the woman had not been located.
When the Express reached out to Simon for an update two days later (May 29), he confirmed that Central Division Police had “picked up” the Venezuelan woman in Freeport on the morning of May 26.
He said his information was that the woman left the Heliport of her own volition and did not disappear from the facility as was being said.
“You use the word disappear, but I would be careful with that word. It connotes some sort of other interference,” Simon said.
“The person left the premises on their own volition. It is not a tightly secured venue…the person left,” Simon stated.
‘A Guantanamo Bay for migrants’
Williams, Arneaud and Gonzalez have previously called for an investigation into the operations of the Chaguaramas Heliport.
Yesterday, Williams reiterated his stance, however, he took it a step further and called for an independent enquiry, to ensure that the truth would come out and there would be less of a potential for any cover-ups or omissions.
“We have called for an investigation previously, but I will add on to that now. I believe that it should be an independent investigation. We are a nation whose actions are being looked at and examined on the global stage.
And incidents like this have the potential to impact this country in a variety of ways, including access to funding, cause it can lead to us being ‘downgraded’ in various international reports and arenas. So there must be an enquiry into the operations of the Heliport facility in Chaguaramas, if not, what does that say.
There must be a commission of enquiry into the Heliport facility because if not, what message does that send to international persons? That all these things are happening but no one seems to care,” Williams said. He described the facility as a “Guantanamo Bay for migrants”.
______________________________________________________________________________
Sources: Alexander Bruzual , Trinidad Express,