A Ministerial Task Force set up in Guyana to tackling Human Trafficking said Wednesday that the US State Department’s assessment of the Guyana’s efforts to combat trafficking in persons in its 2012 report released recently, is ‘a difficult pill to swallow’. The task force which operates out of the Home Ministry said in a statement that the report failed to establish not one single fact.
“The Task Force notes several inaccuracies and misrepresentations in the Report that must be addressed. What is clear is that the architects of this Report have not made significant progress in improving the veracity, coherence and validity of their annual assessments” it said.
The statement added that the Ministerial Task Force denounces the Report since it comprises unsubstantiated generalisations and repetitive uncorroborated claims.
“The Task Force strongly recommends that the US State Department seek to improve its methodology, establish proper baselines to guide comparisons avoid use of anecdotal claims and develop a consistent, understandable, transparent and logical tier ranking system if countries are to benefit from these rituals. The plethora of uncorroborated claims made in the Report can only result in a distorted view of the Guyanese reality as regards the national trafficking in persons’ situation” the statement added.
Guyana said it considered the Report “an affront” to its members, frontline government staff and over one hundred citizens who have been trained to identify and report trafficking in persons and have been doing so along with NGOs such as Help Shelter, Food for the Poor (Guyana) and the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) all of whom partnered with Government in responding to trafficking in persons matters.
“While we were encouraged by what we felt at the time was meaningful dialogue between the Ministerial Task Force and US Embassy Officials, this Report raises significant concerns over the efficacy of these engagements” the statement said.
It added that a perusal of the Report reveals two inescapable inferences; one, the architects had already decided what they wanted to put in the Report and two, the architects gave little or no credence to the information presented by government in partnership with NGOs.
“Consequently, those two factors begs the question of the usefulness of such engagements in future. The danger of these unfounded claims and anecdotes that are replete in the US Report is that even though they are not the product of systematic research nor critical analysis they have never-the-less been published in the local media thus influencing public opinion” it added.
“The US Report’s misrepresentation and scaremongering must be refuted because of its impact on the country’s image and the perpetuation of stereotypes and fears. Worst yet, it can lead to a waste of resources and energy, and a reduction in traditional opportunities for personal economic development and educational advancement” the statement said.
The US State Department report released last week took the Guyana government to task for its failure to prosecute and convict human traffickers.
It said in Guyana, while there was some progress, there was a lack of political will and negligence on part of the state for not adequately addressing the human trafficking.
Guyana again was placed on tier two of the US Human Trafficking watch list for more than five years in succession.(INEWS)