In June 2019, it was reported that Savita Persaud, owner of the “Liquid love” bar in Station Street was sentenced to ten years imprisonment for the sex trafficking of two Venezuelan women. She was faced with two counts of sexual exploitation, one count of confiscation of immigration documents and one count of employing a 17-year-old child on premises that sold liquor. I found the story interesting for two reasons. Firstly, it is not often in Guyana that traffickers actually have to face the music for their crimes. While Guyana currently stands as a Tier 1 country due to efforts to combat human trafficking, our conviction rates have remained dismally low. Apart from our creaking judicial system, part of this might have to do with the fact that a lot of the TIP busts and raids that are carried out usually impact sex workers and not actual traffickers and their victims. Secondly, in reading of the conviction of Persaud, I realized that I was once in her employ and I could have faced preparation for trafficking purposes.
At age 17, I was a semester away from completing my high school education after an unplanned pregnancy had seen me having to drop out two years earlier. Due to financial constraints associated with caring for a child, private school fees and just general survival in a society driven by profit, I had to seek out whatever work I could. Answering an advertisement in the newspapers for a waitress, I would begin working at Liquid Love where I would meet Persaud and her husband. Persaud was always very nice to me; she was polite, helpful and almost motherly at times. Despite remaining cognizant of the fact that I was being underpaid and overworked, I still felt a certain affinity towards her. She spoke a lot about her strong sense of family and ethics. It was all a role however. Upon learning a bit of my life, she would not long after begin asking me to work later into the night and to serve not only as a waitress but to also have prolonged conversations with patrons of the bar. Her husband, often residing in the background took on the role of an oafish flirt. While I often found him annoying, I generally did not see him as a threat and believed that if he crossed the line, I would have support from Persaud.
One evening, approximately three weeks after I had started working there I was approached by Persaud’s husband who gave me his phone and told me to scroll through the images which were mostly comics. Before leaving my side to complete a seemingly urgent task, he told me to continue scrolling, which I did only to shortly after see a photo of a penis. I was so thrown off by it that I immediately left and would soon after let Persaud know that I would not be returning complete with the reasons as to why. I had always found it strange that she had never shown any sort of reaction to the news and the fact that her questions were more focused on if I was sure I was not returning.
The limited context within which we usually think about trafficking can put many at a disadvantage when it comes to understanding how traffickers can skillfully use manipulation, coercion and threats to their advantage to get persons into the sex and labour industries. This is not surprising given the commonly perpetuated idea that traffickers mainly use methods of physical force and kidnapping in order to get their victims. The common image of an anonymous figure waiting to blindfold you and ship you to another country are so prevalent that a lot of times, this is the only context in which we speak about trafficking methods used. Given the fact that so many see human traffickers strictly as dangerous strangers, it can often be difficult for them to recognize the ways in which friends, partners and family members, inclusive of parents can be guilty of sex and labour trafficking. Often, young girls in rural communities and those along the coast are pressured into sex trafficking to support their families. While there is no one specific demographic affected by human trafficking, traffickers do tend to seek out young impressionable minds coming from broken homes and areas struck by poverty and instability.
It is important to note that while in many instances trafficked persons are physically unable to leave their situation, more often than not, trafficking victims might stay depending on various reasons such as fear for their safety, lack of safe housing and lack of basic necessities needed for their survival. Often what is done, is that the trafficker ensures that their victim becomes dependent on them so that their chances of successfully leaving are diminished. Of course, there are some victims who have been so effectively manipulated that they do not even see the need to leave their situation even if they are able to.
When it comes to hopes of stamping out sex and labour trafficking crimes in our country, we do need an updated model of approach in the way in which we share information on trafficking and the ways in which we talk about it. So many unsuspecting persons can easily fall into the trap of being trafficked if they are not aware of different tactics used by those who would seek to commoditize their life.
