Suriname police rescue teenage Guyanese trafficking victims

Nov 10, 2013 News

 
by Ivan Cairo
PARAMARIBO – Surinamese police recently rescued three underage Guyanese girls who were allegedly being exploited in a brothel in the hinterlands, authorities here confirmed.
During a raid in Cabanafo by the Anti-Terror Squad, police and military officers, the girls were rescued while the Guyanese owner of the brothel, her husband and a bodyguard were arrested. The suspects are being charged with being members of criminal organization, human smuggling and human trafficking.
The girls told detectives that under false pretense they travelled to Suriname after they were promised work in a shop. Instead they were forced into prostitution in a brothel in Cabanafo in the Lawa region, a gold field close to the border with French-Guiana.
“The girls were forced into prostitution. If they refused they were beaten and all the money they received from customers were seized by the brothel owner”, police spokesman Humphrey Naarden told local media. The victim allegedly crossed the Suriname-Guyana border illegally.
Meanwhile the authorities are still looking for two other teenage Guyanese girls who at the time officers raided the brothel were not present.
According to Naarden, one of the victims is a 15-year-old girl whose parents filed a missing report with the Guyana police. Through their own efforts the parents received information that their daughter had been spotted in Cabanafo in the Suriname interior. This information was relayed to the office of the Prosecutor General in Suriname. The man subsequently ordered an investigation into the matter.
The Trafficking in Persons Unit of the Suriname Police Force is continuing investigations.