A 16-year-old girl, lured with promises of high-paying work in a shop in the interior of Region Seven, managed to escape a prostitution ring and her report to police later resulted in an arrest and the rescue of four other girls.
The girl, with the help of a kind man, was eventually rescued by an executive member of the Guyana Women Miners Organisation (GWMO), Irene Sears, on Thursday at the Itaballi toll gate, after a truck brought her out of the Oko Backdam, in Region Seven.
She was taken to the Bartica Police Station, where a report was made and after a statement was taken from her officers travelled into the backdam and arrested the woman who allegedly lured her. In addition, the police removed four other young girls–one said to be as young as 13–from the location.
President of the GWMO, Simona Broomes, last evening called for the police to thoroughly investigate the matter and said she hopes the young girls to get justice and that they are assisted in moving on to lead productive lives.
The teenager, who hails from the coast and attends a secondary school, ran away from her grandmother’s home last Sunday after she was promised $80,000 a week to work in a shop in the interior.
She said a man in the area had approached her and informed her that a woman was looking for young girls to take into the interior. Several other girls that she knew had agreed to go on the trip.
“He tell me that we going and wuk in a shop and I believe he. But like dem other girl know wah deh going on,” the child told Stabroek News yesterday. She said she eventually met the woman, who visited her home on Sunday, and she left with her while her grandmother was out.
“I run away from home,” she admitted and when asked the reason, said, “nothing really, we grow up poor and I just want mek some money.”
She lives with her grandmother and an aunt, while her mother and four sisters live at another address.
The child said she journeyed with the woman and the other girls to Pouderoyen, West Bank Demerara, where they spent the night at a property believed to be owned by the woman. The teenager said she became suspicious on Sunday night when the woman’s husband took their son into the house where they were “and ask he which one a we he want.”
“He point out one dem next girl and the two a dem went in a room and spend the night,” she recalled.
The next day, the woman shopped clothing for them and they left for Bartica where they spent the night before leaving for the backdam on Tuesday.
‘Short time’
On Tuesday night, the teenager said, they were told to take a bath and sit in front of the woman’s shop. “I ask she if I ain’t working in the shop no more and she tell me ‘jus now’ and when we sitting down a man come and start talking up in me ears and ask me wah I want to drink and I just suck up me teeth and I see dem other girls watching me,” the child said.
She became increasingly uncomfortable after she saw the youngest in the group “start doing striptease in the shop” and she told one of the girls that she wanted to go home and she left the location. She said that with the assistance of some girls, she managed to get a phone call to her mother and informed her of her whereabouts.
She later returned to the shop to spend the night and the next day the shop owner told her that she had taken her to the location “to wuk and tell me fuh short time, dem man guh pay me two pennyweight a gold and dat I must carry it to she fuh tess fuh see if it real and she guh keep it.” She also said that the woman told her the two pennyweights of gold were valued at $30,000.
The teenager said later on Wednesday afternoon she was approached by a man “and I give he rudeness and like he went and tell she and she come and quarrel up with me and tell me I is a cross.” Now afraid, the teenager left the shop and again solicited a call home, but while she was talking the woman and some of the other girls found her and took the phone. The woman informed the girl’s mother that she would have to repay the $27,000 spent to purchase clothing for her daughter and to transport her into the interior.
“After the phone call, she start slapping me up and tell me look down in a deep gully thing and tell me how she guh throw me down inside,” the child said. She was then dragged back to the shop where she was locked in a room for the night.
“De whole night I cry and I cry and de next morning she open de door and tell me I gat to wuk and I still tell she no,” the child said. She had another opportunity and again left the location and called her mother and cried as she told her what was happening. The woman once again interrupted the call and “beat me up and slap me up and den she and dem other girl walk away and lef me.”
The teen said she decided not to go back to the shop, but ran into some bushes where she saw two men. She informed them that she wanted to leave and they laughed at her and pointed her in the direction of the trail. On the trail, she saw another man and told him of her plight. He was sympathetic and shortly after a truck came along and he solicited a drop for her.
But even the truck journey was a harrowing experience. The teenager related that she was fondled by the passenger on the truck. “I had to sit between de man and de driver. De driver ain’t do me nothing but de next man put he hand round me, lif up me jersey and was rubbing me up. But I de frighten to say anything because I didn’t wan dem put me off the truck,” she related.
‘A call’
Broomes told Stabroek News that on Thursday, she received a call informing her that a rescued child was on her way out of the backdam. She said she immediately contacted Sears, who lives in Bartica and the woman went over to Itaballi to await the truck.
She also contacted the officer in charge at the Bartica Police Station and informed him and the police also met the child at the toll station.
Broomes said the woman who owned the shop at Oko had been ensnared in such activities before and it was featured in the newspapers but she was not sure why she was not charged. “We want to deal with these matters once and for all. There are human trafficking laws and we want to see people prosecuted and taken before the courts,” Broomes said.
As for the traumatised child, Broomes added that her organisation has purchased clothing for her and she spent Thursday night and last night with a GWMO member, who has been in contact with the girl’s relatives.
The child told Stabroek News that she is afraid for herself and family as she believes that the man who linked her up with her the shop owner may go after her grandmother. “I frighten but I want the police lock she up because wah she doing ain’t right,” the child said.
Broomes said they would take the child to the Ministry of Human Services & Social Security for counselling and she hopes the ministry also meets the other young girls, who were brought out last evening by the police.
