Guyana has for the third consecutive year maintained its Tier 1 ranking in the latest United States State Department report on Trafficking in Persons (TIP), which recognises its sustained efforts while also noting shortcomings in protection and shelter outside the capital and the lack of a standard operating procedure for protecting foreign victims.
While Tier 1 is the highest ranking, the report pointed out that it does not mean that a country has no human trafficking problems or that it is doing enough to address the problems. Rather, it said that the ranking indicates that a government has made efforts to address the problems that meet the Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s minimum standards. And to maintain the Tier 1 ranking, governments need to demonstrate appreciable progress each year in combating trafficking.
According to the report, which was released on Thursday, the Government of Guyana fully met the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. “The government continued to demonstrate serious and sustained efforts during the reporting period; therefore Guyana remained on Tier 1,” the report said.
It added that the government demonstrated serious and sustained efforts by increasing funding for victim assistance, identifying and assisting more victims for the third consecutive year, and opening and operating a trafficking shelter outside of the capital area.
That being said, however, the report noted that the government identified 156 victims in 2018 (106 for sex trafficking and 50 for labour trafficking), which is higher than the 131 identified victims identified in 2017. The government also referred 93 victims to shelter and psychological services, compared with 115 in 2017. It screened 11 potential child trafficking victims (10 sex trafficking and one labour trafficking) in 2018. “Despite the noticeable increase of victims from Venezuela, the government lacked standard operating procedures for protecting foreign trafficking victims,” the report added.
The report also recommended that the government finalise, implement, and train law enforcement officials and front-line responders in written victim identification and referral procedures. The government should also fund specialised victim services, in particular for child, adult male, and Venezuelan victims, the report said.
The trafficking profile provided on Guyana in the report indicated that over the last five years, human traffickers have exploited domestic and foreign victims in Guyana, and traffickers exploited victims from Guyana abroad.
“Women and children from Guyana, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Suriname, and Venezuela become sex trafficking victims in mining communities in the interior and urban areas,” the report noted.
Additionally, government reported a large increase in the number of trafficking victims from Venezuela.
The report said, too, that traffickers exploit victims in forced labour in the mining, agriculture, and forestry sectors, as well as in domestic service and shops. And while both sex trafficking and forced labour occur in interior mining communities, the report said limited government presence in the country’s interior renders the full extent of trafficking unknown. It added that children are particularly vulnerable to sex and labour trafficking.
According to the report, traffickers exploit Guyanese nationals in sex and labour trafficking in Jamaica, Suriname, and other Caribbean countries.
Prosecutions
The report also noted that the number of trafficking investigations and new prosecutions decreased, and the number of successful convictions remained low.
The report recommended that the government vigorously investigate and prosecute sex and labour trafficking cases, including those involving child victims, and hold convicted traffickers, including complicit public officials, accountable by imposing strong sentences.
Only on Wednesday, the owner of a night club, Savita Persaud, was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to compensate her two victims to the tune of $2.5 million.
The report added that police and law enforcement officials should also be held accountable for “intimidation of victims in shelters including restricted movement, lack of access to family visits, or telephone services.” Government is also being asked to provide additional protection for victims to testify against traffickers in a way that minimises re-traumatisation and to investigate and report on the cases reported to the trafficking hotline and by labour inspectors.
In the area of prosecution, the report said that the government maintained law enforcement efforts.
It added that in 2018, the government reported 30 new investigations, prosecuted 11 suspected traffickers (two initiated in prior periods), and convicted one trafficker for sex trafficking, compared with four investigations, 17 prosecutions (12 initiated in prior periods), and two convictions in 2017. The government also reported investigating 11 cases of child trafficking (10 sex trafficking and one labour trafficking). The court sentenced the convicted trafficker to three years’ imprisonment and required the trafficker to pay restitution to one victim.
And the appeal of a 2017 case in which the government required the trafficker to pay restitution without imprisonment, which the report noted was a penalty inconsistent with the law, was still pending at the end of this reporting period. The appeal of a police officer convicted of sex trafficking and released on bail in 2016 was still pending at the end of the reporting period.
As it relates to protection, the report said the government increased efforts to identify and protect victims. However, it said that victim assistance remained a concern, especially in areas outside the capital and for Venezuelan, child, and male victims.
And while the government reported multiple cases of delivering foreign victims to their respective embassies at the request of the foreign missions before the conclusion of prosecutions, it did not report whether it facilitated or funded the repatriation of Guyanese nationals victimised abroad.
Addressing prevention, the report said the government increased efforts to prevent trafficking as it established an anti-trafficking unit with three trained staff within the Geology and Mines Commission to register and categorise workers in the interior and conduct spontaneous checks. And while it approved a new national action plan for 2019, it did not report on activities under the plan by the end of the reporting period. The government last conducted research into trafficking in 2016.
Additionally, the report said the government did not make efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex. Authorities conducted unannounced labour inspections in the capital and the interior, but it was unclear if measures to prevent forced labour and regulate foreign and domestic recruiters were sufficient or effective, the report noted.
Meanwhile, at the international level, the report said that despite major progress, a number of countries still struggle with gaps in their domestic legal responses, often because they do not recognise and address human trafficking as is required.