– to investigate human trafficking
OPPOSITION Leader Mr. David Granger has criticised what he termed is the governing People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) administration’s failure to act decisively to stamp out the scourge of trafficking in persons (TIP). He also called on the PPP/C administration to establish a special commission to investigate human trafficking and to promulgate a comprehensive national counter-trafficking enforcement strategy.
Citing the US State Department’s annual ‘Trafficking in Person’s Report’ which usually gives Guyana an unfavourable ‘Tier 2’ ranking, Mr. Granger called on the government to re-organize the Guyana Police Force to enable it to enforce the law and comply with international conventions against trafficking.
“The Government must restructure the police in the hinterland and establish more manageable divisions there,” Granger suggested.
He said more policemen and women must be recruited and equipment and resources must be provided since much of the trafficking occurs in the difficult terrain of mining and logging sites.
Mr. Granger said Guyana’s biggest problems with regard to human trafficking are those of poor enforcement by the police and the widespread perception by perpetrators that their crimes will go unpunished. He pointed to reports in the press about under-aged school girls being lured to seek employment and others being found at ‘sex camps’ in the hinterland.
Mr. Granger recently met with members of the Women and Gender Equality Commission at the Office of the Leader of the Opposition and called on them to adopt an inter-party approach to human trafficking. He said that it had become clear that, on its own, the government seemed unable to cope with the crime.
He warned that the virulence and persistence of the plague of trafficking over the past two decades demanded new official attitudes and approaches.