Quote "The cycle continued until international pressure forced Guyana to take a closer look at human trafficking. It was only then that we realized that girls, in particular, were lured from their homes with the promise of high paying jobs and actually forced into prostitution.

During a recent bust, we learnt that the traffickers would pay the police to turn the other way while the victims are escorted into the hinterland.

Bribery and Corruptions abounds in the Corrupt PPP/C Guyana

Guyana is a source country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced prostitution and forced labor. Guyanese trafficking victim cases have been identified in the country, as well as in other countries in the region. Identified foreign victims have come from Venezuela and Brazil. Forced prostitution occurs in brothels on the coast and around mining camps as well as in rum shops and Chinese restaurants. The common Guyanese practice of poor, rural families sending children to live with higher income family members or acquaintances in more populated areas has the potential to evolve into forced domestic servitude. Trafficking victims in Guyana may not self-identify to authorities due to fear of retribution from trafficking offenders, fear of resettlement to abusive home situations, and lack of awareness that human trafficking is a crime. Groups particularly vulnerable to human trafficking in Guyana include Amerindian females, foreign women (such as Brazilians) in prostitution, and children. During the reporting period the U.S. Department of Labor reported results of a project that withdrew 984 children from exploitive child labor in logging and saw-milling, fishing, hazardous farming, factory work, mining, and freight handling from 2005 to 2009

Courtesy Wikipedia:

The Government of Guyana does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Despite these efforts, the government did not initiate any new prosecutions of trafficking offenses during the reporting period and has yet to convict or punish any trafficking offenders under its five-year old anti-human trafficking law. Therefore, Guyana is placed on Tier 2 Watch List for the fourth consecutive year. During the reporting period, the government and NGOs identified four victims of trafficking, two of whom prison officials proactively identified. The government provided some resources toward victim protection and local anti-trafficking groups. No suspected traffickers were charged, limiting the level of safety and protection that could be provided to victims. While the government took some tangible steps to raise awareness of human trafficking, including the establishment of focal point groups and an anti-trafficking task force, some local observers felt that the government discouraged discussions on developing effective strategies for combating this phenomenon of modern-day slavery.

Granger pushes human trafficking

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Human trafficking and official neglect

April 5, 2014 · By Iana Seales · 0 Comments    Next Article »

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The trafficking, exploitation and imprisonment of women and girls in our country’s interior is real. The everyday violations they face are real, and though the national data might appear minimal, this problem is anything but trivial.

Just last month I sat across the room from a young human trafficking survivor who was sharing her story. She “took a chance” and went into the gold bush but found that she had no choice in determining whether she worked as a shop attendant or a sex worker. For months she was powerless, voiceless and a victim of frequent violence and before she was rescued everyday presented fresh opportunities for her to be violated.

She was one of many victims trapped in an arrangement they had neither the means nor the resources to get out of, not unless someone intervened. Girls her age, and some much younger, were trading sex for money and gold they never saw. They had no freedom to move around and were restricted from communicating with people, with the exception of potential male customers.

Trafficking in Persons (TIP) is a grave violation of human rights and sexual exploitation is the most common form of human trafficking. The lack of localised data and specific research makes it difficult to understand the real scope of the problem, but based on the cases which have been documented the majority of local victims are girls no older than age 20. In fact, some are children, still too young to consent to sexual relations.

Indeed, there are older girls over age sixteen and women who are consensually working in the interior as sex workers but they too are abused and exploited. There are women in the commercial sex industry with very little personal power who find it difficult to escape exploitative situations.

These are crimes we downplay on the assumption that these girls are “hustling in the bush” and can get out anytime. It’s no surprise then that Human Services Minister Jennifer Webster so indifferently referred to them during her budget debate speech earlier this week as “alleged victims.”

But the teenager I met recently was no alleged victim. She was a real victim with a real story—a young girl who was exploited because she is poor, without adequate education and vulnerable.

While we sit around and debate whether these girls and women have willingly agreed to engage in sex work or whether they were coerced into such activities, a large majority of them remain exposed to numerous acts of brutality every day in mining communities.

For years, the US government has reported on the hidden devastation of human trafficking in Guyana and has called on the administration to step up the fight to combat TIP. Just as importantly, many local NGOs and activists have repeatedly shone a light on the terrifying abuses being perpetrated against the victims of human trafficking. But the official response has always been the same: the prevalence of human trafficking is low and the US government’s data is false.

On Tuesday, Minister Webster repeated the line about prevalence saying that repeated assessments have shown that “there is a low prevalence” of TIP. A few years ago Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee made a similar declaration. In a report published by the TIP Ministerial Task Force in 2011, he made the following statement:

“The reports over the years have been clear that as a country Guyana does not have significant numbers of victims of trafficking in persons and the country’s authorities have made significant strides in increasing efforts aimed at preventing and addressing the phenomenon including protecting victims and vulnerable persons and in prosecuting perpetrators.”

But aside from the statements about low prevalence and the reported strides in increased efforts, there is hardly ever any new information on TIP from either minister and or the task force they are a part of. By law, Minister Rohee is required to publish regular figures on TIP and to keep the public informed on what is happening but no such reports have been forthcoming. How then are people supposed to get a sense of what is happening locally with TIP?

Previously, we waited every year for the US Statement Department to publish its global TIP report with country findings. More recently, we have been following the important work being done by the Guyana Women Miners Organisation (GWMO).

In its 2013 TIP report, the US State Department downgraded Guyana from Tier 2 to the Tier 2 Watch List for failing to demonstrate evidence of increasing efforts to hold trafficking offenders accountable. The administration rejected the findings and announced that it would no longer be cooperating with the US authorities.  This means that when the 2014 report comes out later this year, the administration’s input would be missing.

It matters not whether two or three girls are rescued a year, one human trafficking victim is one too many. But we have not had one or two victims a year. In 2012, the GWMO was still in its early days and without any system in place to document evidence, but it had reported that four girls were rescued from the interior.

But in 2013, the organisation reported that 25 human trafficking victims were rescued from mining communities–of this number, 16 were under the age of 18. The cases were all reported to the authorities and the girls would have been interviewed and processed by the police, officials at the Child Care and Protection Agency and the Human Services Ministry.  Similarly, information would have been passed on about the offenders and their last known whereabouts.

Yet only a few of the cases have reached the courts and as recently reported in the Stabroek News, many of them have collapsed due to the absence of the victims. But as GWMO President Simona Broomes pointed out, the girls are not appearing in court because they lack the resources to attend hearings.

Broomes has repeatedly condemned what she describes as a non-responsive criminal justice system that is failing TIP victims and she has accused the administration of being in denial about the problem. Her organisation has and continues to expose the harsh reality of human trafficking in the country and their efforts have not gone unnoticed.

While the government has not heeded Broomes’ call to partner with the GWMO to improve its response to human trafficking, the organization has been increasing its work and stepping up its advocacy. It’s because of them that we are aware of what is happening.

It’s because of the GWMO that public awareness is growing and the plights of trafficking victims are being highlighted. They have single-handedly exposed the denial and as Broomes would often say, “neglect.”

The GWMO is doing tremendous work and has made human trafficking numbers a reality but we can’t reasonably expect these women miners to fight this scourge of human trafficking alone. They have unearthed sufficient evidence to trigger concern and outrage, and it’s about time we move beyond the “prevalence assessments” and acknowledge that serious human rights violations are occurring in our mining communities.

Four Nations Move Against Trafficking in Response to U.S. Report

Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, 10 September 2004

www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2004/September/20040910174056cmretrop0.6162226.html

[accessed 8 February 2011]

Bangladesh, Ecuador, Guyana and Sierra Leone have acted rapidly over the last few months to reduce human trafficking in their borders. In so doing, they have avoided U.S.-imposed sanctions, according to a White House announcement September 10.

Guyana knows that human trafficking is real and the govt are doing their best to combat the situation. It's a global problem and the United States is NOT exempt from human trafficking, child labor, drug trade and many illegal activities. I thought you should know this.

Bhai, Guyana alone in de whole world gat dese prablems. What about peeple who ah higha people and anda pay dem fuh mek plenty munny aff ah dem? Dah ah konsida human traffiking?

Americans are the biggest human traffickers in the world. They kidnap babies from poor family and grow them into prostitution in the Far East. Most of these illegal activities has political connections.

No they are not. The nation was repeatedly ask to heed reports of abuse on young women and denied the situation exists. Plumpy Manickchand even went so far to say white people should mind their own business. To trivialize what is a serious issue with easy lies is a despicable act from you. No one denies trafficking in the US and western Europe is a terrible thing. Here we have active on going surveillance and prosecutions. Craigslist was forced to close its personals  on that account. Guyana did absolutely nothing until that lady began to actively take the neglected duties of the state in her hands.  Until her active intervention the disease in our society was completely neglected. Even now the legislation in this area sits on the Presidents desk It has been over a year now and the fat prick has neglected to sign it.

You are completely disingenuous with this post. Not one person here has explicitly or not denied the existence of these social elsewhere in the west. The comments are directed to our complete neglect to address a cancerous issue ailing every society and is malignant in ours. We already have some 20 women dead from domestic violence. I think to date there has been only one prosecution for trafficking outside of Ms Broomes cases. That you would prevaricate on such a terrible social neglect speaks to your completely amoral core.

Most of the trafficked persons to the ME are from Eastern Europe and India and not the US. US nationals are indeed suspect but most of the people trafficked in the US are foreign nationals ie Asians and Eastern Europeans.

You abuse women. You call Priya Manickchand all sorts of names. Isn't this verbal abuse? Doesn't verbal abuse lead to domestic violence? Or are you a bully? Again, go fly a kite. You write hogwash..very illogical thinking, signs of neurosis. Take your wooden blinders off.

Plumpy is plumpy. Speak to her hypocritically getting accolades for a job she did not do.

You have no refuge but to hide behind your racist bilge and fishtown 'buse down.  Address what I say for their form and content then you can speak to their integrity. To this point you demonstrate nothing more than the reality you are a simpleton with pretensions to erudition.

Ain't nobady gat time fuh yuh garbage. No wanda you fuss wife leff yuh fuh wan coolie man. 

I do not write for you. You are not remotely on my event horizon. Again, I have only had one wife. If you want to imaging others for me, go right on ahead. I cannot help your need to placate some peculiarity in your psyche.

Stormborn is abusive to women, especially to our education minister, Priya Manickchand. In his mind, he is pimping this beautiful woman everyday. She even received an honorary doctorate degree, therefore, he's pimping highly educated woman. Stormborn has a w/hore house mentality.

De man really jealous you know? He miss dem coolie ting. He gat rejected too many times. Now dem ah sowah grapes.

Everything AFC/APNU promotes, they also promotes and demand respect like a bum cussing you wife in the street and still begs you for a dollar.

Quit the disinformation campaign. It is pointless since anyone can see the person above has long been flushed down the toilet with the aid of extra helpings of aloo and rotie.

I doubt she is slow in the head as yuo are to allow anyone to "pimp" her. I wonder why you folks always gravitating to the language of wh.oring!

I would invite you to look at some of the words you and your folks used here daily. W/hore is another word for prostitute or adulterers. Take it as you see fit.

Speak for yourself. I stay clear of the rum and port cutters crowd.