– puts exploiters on notice
The Guyana Women’s Miners Organisation (GWMO) says it continues to see disturbing signs of human trafficking in gold mining areas and its president said that the organisation is in the process is compiling a report which it plans to release next year.
Despite the GWMO giving wide publicity to its discoveries of human trafficking in the interior, “it has been happening and it is even more disturbing to me,” President of the organisation Simona Broomes told the Sunday Stabroek in a recent interview.
Less than a year after the organisation came into existence, Broomes said, the compilation of a report, which would detail what they have found during many travels in the mining sector, has begun.
“We have been doing some serious groundwork because before the end of the year there are some areas that we need to go into… our intelligence tells there are some areas that we need to penetrate urgently,” Broomes told the Sunday Stabroek.
Broomes said she would not list the areas they plan to visit since they do not want “to alert people about our movements”, but she said members will be travelling to the various locations to fact check reports they received and while they are hamstrung in the area of taking any decisive action they would document their findings and hope that the relevant authorities would act.
She said GWMO has travelled to different districts and regions but has not as yet published all of its findings, noting that time and time again the reports received are verified.
A sore point for the organisation, according to its president, is that it has not been “embraced” by the relevant authorities in its fight against trafficking in persons.
As an organization that funds itself, the GWMO expected to really collaborate with the persons who want to see change in the area, “so that we could achieve more in the fight this scourge,” the GWMO president said.
That being said, however, Broomes named Minister of Environment & Natural Resources Robert Persaud as someone who has been speaking out on the issue and who has responded favourably to the work of the organisation. She recalled that it was his ministry that financed the trip to Itaballi when the GWMO rescued a child from the area.
As a result, Broomes said, the GWMO would continue to engage Persaud’s ministry in the hope that there would be continued collaboration, particularly in visiting some specific areas.
Broomes has a deep passion for helping women and children who may be trapped in human trafficking or child labour.
“I am about people, women, girls, boys, people in general and that is why I [have been fighting] against trafficking in persons… When I launched the organisation and spoke about trafficking in persons, people looked at me as if I am alien and I don’t know what I am talking about…,” Broomes said.
Some even told her that the issue was “not in my zone” but time has proven her right. She said that with her many years of experience in the gold mining sector, she knew what she was speaking about and she no longer wanted to sit and be a silent observer of the harsh realities for women in the sector.
“I think that the time is right for us as women to stand up and really represent others in the industry. [At] this time with all the gold prices going up and how mining is attractive to the world we want to have one of the best industries in Guyana and we intend to work towards that… We would continue to engage the Ministry of Natural Resources and any other organisation…to bring this right image to the mining sector.”
Broomes feels that with the birth of the GWMO the image of women in the industry has changed. Many have seen that they are not only prostitutes in the sector and women are now more proud to stand up and say they work in the interior.
“We are achieving in terms of empowering women and cleaning up our mining sector…,” she boasted.
Broomes cautioned that her organisation was not about tarnishing the mining industry since trafficking in persons does not only take place in that sector. What is happening, in fact, is that as women in the sector GWMO members have zero tolerance for the issue and “we have to protect our fellow women…”
It’s not just people in the interior who contact the organization, but also people in the Georgetown and sometimes it has nothing to do with its work but Broomes said she always listens and attempts to assist. She said the police have also been very responsive to the organisation.
Increased marketability
The GWMO also wants to help women who are being exploited in the sector hence the reason it has been talking about training for them so as to increase their marketability in the sector.
“So women who might have been attracted to the industry for the money and gone in there and ended up being trapped in the different things surrounding it, they would have some alternative,’ she pointed out.
To this end, Broomes announced that Persaud’s ministry has pledged to help with training, and an excavator, which women will be trained to operate is expected to be handed over to the organisation. The ministry had earlier donated a GPS to the organisation to aid in its work.
The GWMO is in the process of finalising a deal with the Guyana Geology & Mines Commission (GGMC) for 100 acres of land in the Potaro area, which would be used by members of the organisation to mine and for training. She said the land has to first be gazetted before the mining licence can be handed over to the organisation.
Questioned on who would be selected to work the area, Broomes said the women would have to be financial members of the GWMO. And in an effort to keep the process transparent, the environment ministry and the GGMC will work along with the organisation in formulating the policy of selecting. Rental would have to be paid to work the area and Broomes hopes the ministry would agree that the rental could be used by the organisation to employ staff to operate its office. “We are working on the finer details so by the time we have that mining licence we would already have an idea of how we go forward,” she said adding that the miners would have to own equipment and have the ability to immediately start working.
The area would be made available to small and medium-scale miners and because prospecting would have already been conducted, they would see returns on their investments as soon as they commence work. The excavator would also be rented at a “fair sum” when it is not being used for training.
Opposition
Broomes said the organisation continues to get opposition and interestingly from more women than men. She said men have been “embracing us more, in fact in some areas it is the males who call us…” But she said some of the women and men who oppose the organisation have gained respect for it and “now they oppose us in a more silent way” and they would from time to time, speak out against the GWMO in some areas.
“I am not against a woman having a shop,” Broomes said. “Shops are needed in the interior, but the kind of shops we support do not condone trafficking and child labour and those things and this organisation would not condone those activities.”
She said while the organisation is mostly concerned with women being held against their will or taken to the interior under false pretence, it will also be targeting women who do sex work of their own free will to offer them training which would provide them with an alternative to their current employment.
“For persons who have shops and want to continue with these illegal activities when we come after you, we have no apologies to make to you. We will come after you and since we have launched we have been putting these persons on notice. We are not going to pass by such activities and do nothing. There is nobody who could bribe Mrs Broomes,” she said emphatically.
And Broomes said she is not afraid as she has “been to hell and back already.”
Meanwhile, in terms of membership Broomes said it has been growing rapidly and the last count revealed that the GWMO had some 420 members. It is hoped that by the time the organisation celebrates its first anniversary in January, 1,000-plus women would be on board.
To this end, for the past month, two members have taken up position at the GGMC’s office every day to meet women, tell them of the organisation and sign them on. She said that for the three weeks they have been there not a day has gone by without women signing on.
They also plan to visit some East Coast areas from where women have been calling and instead of them seeking the organisation out they will find them. Members in Bartica and the Tamakay Backdam have also been on a membership drives
Broomes paid tribute to some of the “main miners” and the executive of the organisation many of whom have pooled their resources to fund the activities of the organisation. She said they have visited all the mining regions except for one and by the end of this month they plan to visit that region.
