SURINAME police have reported that they rescued three Guyanese teenage girls from the sex trade in that neighbouring country.

The Surinamese cops claimed the trio were held against their will and made to perform duties as sex workers at a brothel in a gold mining township in the interior.
The reports said, during a raid at the brothel, three other individuals, including a Guyanese woman, allegedly the owner of the place, her husband and a bodyguard were arrested.
The girls reportedly told detectives that they were taken to Suriname under the pretext that they would be working in a shop. But, instead they were forced into prostitution at Cabanafo in the Lawa region, a gold field close to the border with French Guiana.
It is alleged that the victims were beaten when they refused to perform sex acts and all the monies they received from customers were then seized by the brothel owner.
All that happened after the teenagers had crossed the Suriname/Guyana border illegally.
Reports from Suriname said one of the victims is a 15-year-old girl whose parents had filed a missing persons report with the Guyana Police sometime ago.
The parents, however, continued to look for their daughter and after receiving information that she was seen at Cabanafo, relayed it to the office of the Prosecutor General in Suriname, from where an investigation was ordered.
It was during an operation by the anti-terror squad, police and military officers, that the girls were found and the suspects arrested.
The latter are being charged with human smuggling, human trafficking and belonging to a criminal organisation.
Meanwhile, the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Unit of the Suriname Police Force is continuing investigations but the authorities are still looking for two other Guyanese girls who, at the time of the raid, were not found.

(Alex Wayne)