Opposition Leader David Granger yesterday called on the government to establish a facility for human trafficking victims, in wake of the handling of the four young girls who were rescued on Sunday from the Tiger Creek Backdam, Puruni in Region Seven, and then forced to spend the night at the Bartica Police Station.
Granger made the call yesterday in the National Assembly as a matter of definite, urgent and public importance, hours after the girls, ages 14, 15, 17 and 18, were brought to the city, following their dramatic rescue by members of the Guyana Women Miners Organisation (GWMO).
“Trafficking in persons (TIP) is a reality, whether episodic or continuous. The fact is that when young women are rescued from abusive situations, they need to be treated in a humane manner and we are asking that the state accept responsibility for taking these girls in safe custody. And, sometimes, it has been proven that the safe custody might not be a police station, with a lot of male police…” Granger said.
Even as the treatment of victims raised concerns, Crime Chief Seelall Persaud yesterday said the allegation made by one of the girls implicating a policeman in transporting her and others to Puruni to be sex workers is also to be investigated.
Just before the start of the continuation of the consideration of the budget estimates, Deputy Speaker Deborah Backer, who stood in for Speaker Raphael Trotman, indicated that Granger had written to the House to have the matter addressed and it was decided at the tripartite level that he would raise his concerns, the AFC would also speak and Prime Minister Sam Hinds would respond.
Hinds later said that the government joined in condemning all forms of exploitation, including sexual exploitation, child labour and human trafficking and he added that the administration has been taking measures to reduce such occurrences.
“The government takes on board the considerations of having some protocols in place so that when an incident such as this recur[s] there would be some guidelines… in place to rescue these girls or provide some place of rescue until the matters could be sorted out,” he said in response to Granger’s suggestion.
Granger, who is also head of the main opposition APNU, said he was very concerned that the young women were made to sleep at the police station because there was no long-term arrangement for proper accommodation of victims.
“I regard that as double jeopardy. They were not only victims of a crime but they were also victims of administrative neglect, in that there were no facilities for those girls,” he told Stabroek News, prior to the beginning of the parliamentary sitting.
Granger said they are asking for a separate institution to be established so that immediately after victims are rescued, they can be taken to a safe destination where they are given food, shelter and medical attention, if necessary.
“Eventually, we have to bring this scourge to an end. We have to stop trafficking in persons, but today I am asking that the plight of the young women who have been rescued be put foremost on the agenda of the executive branch and that they be given a safe place to stay and they could be reunited with their family,” he said.
He also said he had spoken to Region Seven Chairman Gordon Bradford and he invited the government to look at short-term relief, even as they look at the long-term resolution of the problem.
AFC MP Cathy Hughes, meanwhile, said that TIP is of concern to all Guyanese and she stressed that a firm solution to the problem must be found as more cases are highlighted. She suggested government and NGOs and other organisations be partnered in various areas to provide safe spaces for victims and there is need for proper accommodation.
“Not a bench in a police station,” she said. “I think more and more, it is clear that protection must be provided.”
Both Granger and Hughes complimented the work the GWMO is doing and Hughes added that it is alarming that the members of the organisation felt threatened “much less minors who find themselves in such difficult and unacceptable situations.”
Prime Minister Hinds also said that the government appreciated the work done by the GWMO in this particular case and he reported that the girls were in Georgetown and with them were officers from the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security who were working on the issue.
The government is also working on bringing about transformation so that the hinterland becomes like the coast and all the laws are respected and conformed to in the hinterland, he added.
The Ministry of Home Affairs, in a subsequent statement, accused Granger of besmirching its efforts and the efforts of the Ministerial Task Force on TIP set up by Cabinet, and the police force.
It noted Granger’s suggestion that police stations may not be safe place for victims because the number of male ranks present and said in response that whenever young girls deemed human trafficking victims are brought to any interior police stations, they are placed under the watchful eye of the female ranks and not the male ones. There are female ranks at almost every police station or outpost on the coast or in the interior of the country, the ministry pointed out.
The practice, it explained, is that victims are rarely kept beyond 24 hours at any police station. “The Ministry of Home Affairs reaffirms that in instances where young girls are allegedly victims of trafficking, alternative temporary accommodation to police stations would be found at hotels, the residences of TIP focal points, hospitals or hostels. This arrangement has worked successfully over the years,” it said, while adding that during the victims’ stay at these locations, probation officers and female ranks of the Guyana Police Force would be present to watch over them.
Investigate
Meanwhile, Crime Chief Persaud said yesterday that police will investigate allegations against a policeman, who was identified by the 14-year-old girl, as the person who took her and others into the backdam to be sex workers.
The girl, who said the policeman owns a shop in the area, told GWMO members who rescued her that she left after he refused to pay her and she ended up at the shop from where she was rescued.
Persaud said that members of the police force are not allowed to own shops unless they get permission from the Commissioner of Police. He noted that it does not prevent the wife and children of ranks from owning shops. However, he emphasised that the force will launch an investigation into the allegations levelled against the rank.
Persaud, who said that the ages of the girls have to be investigated, said that they don’t know that any offence had been committed. Persaud also told Stabroek News that he was unsure if the word “rescue” was an appropriate one to describe the removal of the girls from their situation. According to him, the police first have to establish how the girls got there. “Is it a case that she is there with a boyfriend? Is it a case that she is there with her parents? All that we have to investigate,” he explained, when asked how he would describe a girl as young as 14 years being found in such a situation.
The actions of both the police and mines officers during the confrontation between GWMO President Simona Broomes, and the husband and wife who owned the shop where the girls were being held have raised questions.
Broomes, who accused the couple of subjecting the girls to a form of sex slavery since they not only forced them to work as sex workers but took away whatever money they made, was assaulted by the man and his wife while in the Puruni backdam. This was done in the presence of a mines officer, who stopped Broomes and the girls as they were escaping in order to demand statements even though these were already given to his colleague. Approached on this issue yesterday, Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Robert Persaud told Stabroek News that he will be issuing a statement.
Broomes, who was threatened and assaulted while transporting the girls from the shop where they were being kept, remained outraged that the girls were forced to sleep in the police station on Sunday night. She had indicated to the police officers that the girls could have stayed at a private residence but she requested that a police officer to be present at the location because she was threatened by the shop owners who followed them to the Itaballi Crossing. The request was denied.
Yesterday morning, when she visited the girls at the station, she was told that the Ministry of Human Services requested that they be immediately brought to George-town. However, even as the girls were placed in the boat to be transported to Parika, the police officers asked Broomes and her associates if they had transportation for them once they arrived. “So here it was, the Ministry of Human Services was demanding that the girls be taken to Georgetown but provided no proper transportation for them,” Broomes said. Some GWMO members later met them at Parika and a bus was hired to transport the girls.
GWMO member Danah Jones, who later escorted the girls to the Criminal Investiga-tions Department (CID) Headquarters at Eve Leary yesterday revealed that a female police officer “threw a lot of awful slang” at her and other GWMO members while they were there.
According to Jones, the officer lashed out at Broomes for speaking to the media and other agencies, saying that she was “a dangerous person” since she should only be speaking to the government.
“But I told her that these girls were in horrible conditions and needed help. After speaking to those girls I felt so sad that I actually wept for them,” Jones told this newspaper.
In response, Jones said the female officer indicated that the young girls know what they “go in for and they look for what they get.” She said while the girls were not in earshot, she was concerned that those same insults would have been thrown at the girls when she and other GWMO members were not present, since they were not allowed to stay when the girls gave statements as it was indicated that child services’ officers would have arrived.
“I am very concerned about the attitude of that female police officer… to say that the girls look for what they get is terrible. She does not know what happens to those girls who want to leave but can’t leave. Something needs to be done about trafficking in persons. It is becoming an epidemic…” Jones said.
Broomes added that she was very grateful for the support shown to her organisation by an official of the US Embassy, whom she said was the only person who she contacted after they were threatened and who called repeatedly to ensure that they arrived safely in Bartica.
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