TRAFFICKING in human beings is a pernicious trade that some have put on par with international drugs and illegal arms trafficking.
It is a subject that has been attracting much attention here since the United States Government last month put Guyana on notice for allegedly not doing enough against the practice.
The U.S. State Department in a report cited Guyana under Tier 3 of its listing of countries involved in Trafficking in Persons (TIP). Tier 3 is the lowest possible level, meaning that Guyana, in the eyes of the U.S. does not currently do enough to combat TIP.
The government here was also given a 60-day deadline – expiring in August – in which it must undertake action to be listed as at least Tier Two. Failure to comply could mean sanctions, most likely in the withdrawal of U.S. humanitarian aid to Guyana.
According to the State Department report, “Guyana is a country of origin, transit, and destination for young women and children trafficked primarily for sexual exploitation.”
“Much of the trafficking takes place in the interior of the country, where observers indicate that likely over 100 persons are engaged in forced prostitution in isolated settlements”, it says. Victims are also found in prostitution centres in Georgetown and New Amsterdam, according to the authors of the report, who also say that most foreign victims are trafficked from Northern Brazil with some possibly coming from Venezuela.
“Guyana is also a transit country for victims trafficked into Suriname”, it says.
The report indicates that the Guyana Government “does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking” because of a “lack of understanding of the problem, as well as a paucity of resources that can be dedicated to fighting the problem.” Guyana is only beginning to address human trafficking, much of which occurs in regions where the government has limited authority, it concludes.
With the release of the report the government was quick to counter that it had been addressing the problem in spite of the daunting difficulties the State Department report recognised.
For most Guyanese, human trafficking has been more associated with the bizarre stories that have long emerged from other parts of the world of a widespread trade in people being crammed into shipping containers for slave markets in developed countries and of children kidnapped and sold into sex slavery.
According to Interpol – the international police organisation - trafficking in persons is “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.”
There is no evidence that trafficking in persons here is in any way near the proportions that it is elsewhere in the world but steps must be taken to root out the practice wherever it has sprung up in Guyana.
Head of the President Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon on Wednesday reported that the fan-out by the government minister heading the campaign against trafficking in persons has found little evidence of the `trade’ here. He also announced that a U.S. State Department official is due soon to interact and assess the situation in Guyana.
Dr. Luncheon is optimistic that the visit would finally put the issue "to rest" and see Guyana being removed from the list of countries that face possible U.S. sanctions if they are found wanting in the anti-human trafficking campaign.
He added that once it has been recognised that the government has adopted measures that have been successfully implemented and create the requisite environment to deal with trafficking in persons, a reclassification “would be in order.”
It is an expectation that most Guyanese feel would be in order.