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Guyana’s Honorary Consul Norman Faria has accused the Barbados media of sensationalising the results of a recent survey that suggested that nearly half the island’s sex workers are Guyanese.
Faria has also expressed concern about the methodology used to determine the findings and has written the consultants who were hired to conduct the survey for more information.
Last week, it was reported by the island’s press that a study, “Findings of a Baseline Study Among Male and Female Sex Workers in Barbados,” revealed that 46% of the sex workers in Barbados are from Guyana, the highest percentage of any group. The study was conceptualised to assess and contribute to the reduction of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases among the sex worker population, their partners and clients in Barbados.
But Faria said he was “disappointed” that sections of the media chose to “sensationalise” the data collected. He cited the Barbados Nation, which featured a banner headline on the front page.
“The Consulate finds such sensationalising to sell a few more papers and get more listeners to be deeply offensive and insulting to the overwhelming majority of Guyanese nationals, especially women, in Barbados,” he said in a statement issued yesterday. “The impression given to readers/ listeners/viewers in the Barbados media is that the majority of the sex workers were Guyanese when indeed more serious surveys are necessary. Impressionable people may generalise from irresponsible reporting, embarrassing the majority of tolerant and welcoming Bajan society.”
Faria pointed out that Guyanese women toil in Barbadian homes, taking care of the elderly and doing domestic work. He added that if it were not for them, the island’s health institutions, and employers who would have to take time off from jobs and clean their homes and give care to elderly relatives, would be hard pressed.
Approximately 100 sex workers were interviewed at 131 site visits over four general areas. However, only 44 sex workers participated in the baseline study, out of which 30 female sex workers were interviewed through closed-ended surveys and nine female sex workers participated in the in-depth interviews. The project was funded through CAREC, UNIFEM, Canadian Interna-tional Development Agency- Canada Caribbean Gender Equality Program and the Pan American Health Organisa-tion.
It was noted, however, that George Griffith, the Execu-tive Director of the Barbados Family Planning Association, has charged that the survey was invalid and unreliable. Faria took a similar view, adding that he believed that while the consultants who conducted the survey were well-meaning, the study was never a definitive, scientific survey of the sex worker industry. He said a more in-depth study appears to be necessary, with a wider definition of a sex worker. “So it would be problematic and misleading, as the consultants themselves would agree, for the stated percentages of the various nationalities of the prostitutes interviewed to be definitive and etched in stone,” he said. “If , as I suspect, the survey is what is called snowball sampling, rather than a comprehensive, scientifically done census and questionnaire, it was regrettable for sections of the media to sensationalise, with all its salacious and gossipy references to so called foreigners, the figures.”
