By John Richards
Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Robert Persaud recently urged residents of Mahdia to take a stand against the trafficking of young girls, even as he expressed disgust at the situation.
Persaud, who made the call during a meeting with residents in the township, became the first male minister to frontally address the issue of trafficking in persons. He told the residents that the churches, schools and law enforcement must all work together to address the many issues, including trafficking in persons, affecting the community.
Towards the end of April four girls—two under 18 and two under 16—were rescued from a mining area where they had been taken to do sex work. The Guyana Women Miners Organisation has been receiving and acting on reports of young girls being exploited in the interior.
Guyana is listed as a Tier 2 country in the US Trafficking In Persons (TIP) report, and is identified as a source and destination country for “men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking” and forced labour.
Several other issues were raised at the meeting such inadequate health and educational provisions, water availability, sewage blockage, garbage and sanitation and the need for a gold board in the region.
Addressing the concerns, Persaud made reference to the last meeting in the community, held on February 22, where similar issues were raised and offered to comment on the progress made on the issues raised on that date. Persaud said his ministry has realized that they are in need of a multi-sectoral approach to the various issues, and many other ministries had to come on board; he named the Ministry of Public Works and the Ministry of Health.
The issues raised in February included the lack of access to mining opportunities, unregularized miners and unregularized Brazilians who it is believed contribute to the drug smuggling cases as well as the water situation.
He said the administration has been able to commence work on the water system and are in the process of flushing it out.
Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Health Joseph Hamilton said more nurses are being prepared to go to the community hospital so as to develop the community through health.
One woman suggested the rehabilitation of the garbage incinerator to curb the garbage problem as well as the recycling of products by factories as she said that the garbage issue is connected to the number of illnesses recorded in the community that put pressure on the healthcare system.
The minister reminded his audience that in the case of the incinerator residents had complained about the smoke damaging their clothes and health, and this had caused the operation to be stopped. When the government had started to have companies recycle their products the amount of garbage collected was not enough to be economically viable for the businesses, so a halt was also brought to that. Additionally, he used the opportunity to inform the residents that some of them contribute to the problems in some cases, while at other times it is a design problem and work was required to be done.
The issue of forestry was also touched on and the minister said that once accommodation can be found to house a forestry officer one will be provided. He told the residents that he has knowledge of the land problems which affect them and he directed them to another forum at which land and forestry matters were being dealt with more extensively. He further identified the major problem as sanitation and drainage and stated that some $40 million had already been identified to conduct makeovers/tidying up of mining communities in all the districts starting with Mahdia.
Touching on the land issue, he mentioned the first lottery in a number of years held in cooperation with GGMC. That lottery allowed 360 pieces of land to become available, that covered all the mining districts including Mahdia.
The minister also said “this is not a one-off approach and we have noticed that there is an increased demand and it will have to be done on a sustained basis.”
In a few months’ time there will be another lottery which will create even more opportunities for small miners, he said.
As regards the gold board, residents were told that a gold board follows a bank, because of the amounts of money which would need to be exchanged for the gold. Therefore, as soon as a commercial bank is established in the community a gold board would follow.
In closing the minister stated, “We want this community to be a shining example of what a mining community should be like. We want to support the efforts that you are making and we want you to be proud of your community.”
Also on the panel at the meeting were Deputy Commissioner of GGMC Rickford Vieira, Regional Chairman Mark Crawford, Regional Executive Officer Ronald Harsawack and Guyana Women Miners Organisation President Simona Broomes.
