PORT-OF-SPAIN (CMC):

A woman who was held captive for two weeks by kidnappers has called on government to compensate kidnap victims for money paid for their release.

Debbie Ali is seeking a face-to-face meeting with the Minister of National Security and the commissioner of police to discuss the matter.

She made the call while addressing hundreds of people at an anti-crime rally in Central Trinidad Saturday. The rally followed two days of protest by some business people who heeded the call of a local broadcaster to shut down the country to protest against rising crime.

Horrific crime

Ali, who was released shortly before Christmas by her abductors described kidnapping as "the most horrific crime".

She said: "It is worse than death because you sitting there and you don't know and you stewing and you suffering and you don't know."

She slammed government for downplaying the impact of local crime by arguing that it is a global issue.

According to her, since government could not compensate kidnap victims for their pain and suffering, it should at least give back victims the ransom money paid for their release.

"The least they could do is give us back our ransom money because they have failed us as a government in protecting us," she said.

Ali said she was thrown in the trunk of a car on being abducted at gunpoint, forced to stay in a hole in the rain and dragged with a pillow case over her head to a small room, where she was forced to bathe naked in front of her abductors.

Ali said she had to defecate and urinate in front of her abductors, with her hands tied. She also noted she was chained to a bed and mauled by a pit bull for three consecutive days.