An Indian national, was yesterday rescued from the Georgetown area, where he said that he was being held against his will by a shop owner.
The Guyana Women Miners’ Organisation (GWMO) and the Ministry of Human Services collaborated on the rescue.
GWMO President Simona Broomes said it was the first operation that her organisation has conducted in the city. “Because we are focused in the interior, we will normally ask the persons to go and report it to the police but in this case we have had several letters and statements to us about this young man so I decided to make this one of the tests in the city to see how an operation can run with the police and so on,” she told Stabroek News.
According to Broomes, the man said that he was being held against his will and was not permitted to leave the building where he was being kept. “The owner said that he has his passport. He indicated to the police that he has his passport,” she noted.
“He has to eat everything, including chowmein with his hands. He received according to the letter that we get, he is being abused and different things. If he wants to call his family, the phone has to be on speaker and he is not allowed to go out and mingle even with staff. We have reported it to the police and they will do their investigation,” she added.
When contacted Minis-ter of Human Services Jennifer Webster said that her staff was present during the operation and they also accompanied the young man to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Headquarters along with Broomes.
In this year’s 2013 US State Department report on Trafficking in Persons (TIP), Guyana has been downgraded from Tier 2 to the Tier 2 Watch List for failing to demonstrate evidence of increasing efforts to hold trafficking offenders accountable with jail time over the previous reporting period. “While there have been some efforts to protect victims, the lack of punishment for trafficking offenders creates an enabling environment for continued human trafficking. The government did not provide evidence that it followed through with prosecution for high-profile suspected child trafficking cases reported in the media,” the report said.
The US report also noted that efforts to protect trafficking victims were hindered by the lack of accountability for perpetrators of the crime.
The Donald Ramotar administration, however, “rejected” the findings, saying the US report is “riddled with fabrication” and ignores efforts at combatting the situation. It also announced that it would no longer be submitting responses in the US Embassy’s annual survey on TIP.
