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Jun 14, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
Raids done to combat trafficking in persons (TIP) should be based on human intelligence. Information should be gathered, and only when there is a basis for a successful raid should it be undertaken.
Recently there was an anti-TIP raid in Bartica. The raid netted a great many persons, including non-nationals. Yet the only charges that could have been laid were unrelated to trafficking in persons. The persons brought before the courts were charged with immigration-related offences, such as overstaying their time in the country. In other words, the raid was a monumental failure. It has failed to gain a successful prosecution for trafficking in persons
The immigration-related charges may have provided some consolation that the raid did net some value. But why is Guyana hauling the nationals of other countries before the courts for overstaying their time?
There are large numbers of illegal Guyanese to be found in almost all of the Caribbean islands, in North America and the United Kingdom. Guyanese are working and staying illegally in these countries. They go there and work and they provide for their families back home.
Guyanese are notorious for going on a holiday and making it into a “holistay”. Many of those who now hold foreign citizenship would have originally been illegal aliens. They were allowed to rationalize their status.
We therefore should be the last persons to be hauling non-nationals before the courts for overstaying, especially considering the fears that non-nationals may have about applying for extensions for their stays. They know they are going to be asked questions as to what they are doing in Guyana, and they may not be able to find a satisfactory answer.
Guyanese in other countries find themselves in the same boat. This is why we should have been more considerate.
If these non-nationals were involved in robberies and murders, then a strong case could have been made out that they should be expelled when arrested. But those arrested during the recent anti-TIP raid were working girls, plying their trade, the best way they know how. They are not getting in anyone’s way.
The law of course provides that persons who overstay their time in Guyana may be charged. But does this mean that they have to be charged, hauled before the courts, and then placed in the lockups before they are deported.
Why instead of hauling these women before the courts can they not be given time to put their immigration status in order? Why not allow them a few weeks to apply for an extension to their stay, failing which they can be given time to leave the country? Why put them through all the hassle of going to Court. When this is done to Guyanese in other countries we complain. When Barbados used to have a special bench for Guyanese we used to protest. Yet we are doing the same to others as was being done to us.
Trafficking in humans is a serious offence, but it is not an easy offence to establish under the law. You have to prove that the person is being held against their will or being held under exploitative conditions. This may seem straightforward, but in law it is not easy to prove.
This is why the type of raid that was conducted is not the way to go. I am not sure how many of those who we pulled in the recent dragnet would admit that they were rescued from exploitative conditions. From the photographs shown on social media, most of those pictured seem healthy and well-dressed, no indication that they were being forcibly held or being held under exploitative situations.
There is a need for an understanding of just what constitutes trafficking in persons. Prostitution can be a form of human trafficking, but not all cases of prostitution involve human trafficking.
Of course this fact should be used to detract from the efforts to combat human trafficking. But cases have to be built. I would urge that undercover officers from the Ministry of Social Protection visit some bars in which Amerindian girls are employed and try to have a word with some of these girls. There is one such bar in Better Hope where the girls are groped as they pass by. Some of these girls are far away from home and have no support whatsoever. These are the girls that need protection, not those who were netted recently.
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