– TIP hero Simona Broomes says fight requires widespread support

By Shauna Jemmott
GUYANA was recently taken off the U.S. government’s Tier 2 Watch list for Trafficking in Persons (TIP), but while TIP hero Simona Broomes is overjoyed, she believes all sectors of society need to band together to wipe out the problem. “As a country and a government and from my personal standpoint, I don’t think there is a second person who feels the way I do about this.
“It’s a journey of pain of happiness, of sadness, of tears, sorrow, loneliness… a very, very, very lonely journey,” she told the Guyana Chronicle in an exclusive interview.
Speaking of her own crusade to recuse girls from interior logging and mining camps and shops, Broomes said it was difficult to “advocate and to lay your life down on the line for people.”
In June 2013, Broomes who was then president and founder of the Guyana Woman Miners Organisation (GWMO), was honoured by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry as one of the 2013 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report heroes at a ceremony at the U.S. Department of State.
The U.S. government two Thursdays ago released its 2016 TIP Report, with Guyana removed from the Watch list.
“I don’t have words that I could put together to describe the journey, but what I would always say is that I thank God, because He was always there with me and He kept me and He brought me this far and so I say to God be the glory, great things He has done.
“When I received the award in 2013, I said I will come back to Guyana and commit myself in[sic] working towards removing Guyana as a nation and as a people from that Watchlist.
“I am alive and I am here…and seeing it unfolding before me is a dream come through,” she said in an interview.
But Broomes recognises that the road ahead is yet still tough.

“I am not saying that we are there, we are very far from there,” Broomes said, adding that the U.S. TIP makes recommendations.

In its latest report, the U.S. Government called on local authorities to vigorously investigate and prosecute sex and labour-trafficking cases here and hold convicted traffickers accountable – including complicit officials – by imposing sentences that are commensurate with the gravity of the crime.

“Human Trafficking is national, it’s a global situation also, and so all Guyanese should be involved [in the fight]. It is a perfect time that everybody could get on board and really work together and take Guyana to the next level where we should be,” Broomes told the Guyana Chronicle.
“… while the report pointed out what was done that caused us to move down to that tier, it also gives us the opportunity to continue to build on the requirement, and what is needed and what should happen.”
She said she had incorporated several Non-Governmental organisations, including Red Thread and the Guyana Association of Women Lawyers (GAWL), and religious groups in the fight.
She said fighting TIP does not stop at identifying and rescuing victims, since the healing process of each victim is a tremendous challenge in itself.
Recently at a training seminar involving officers within the mining and forestry industries, Broomes spoke passionately against TIP, explaining in detail to the officers a victim’s experience and why she risked it all to save girls and women who fell prey to sexual predators within the extractive and logging industries.
She detailed the abuse suffered by a young teenager at the hands of a mature man and was moved to tears as she related that story of the only girl she never was able to rescue. Had she been able to garner the support of the past government, she could have saved the young girl. She returned searching for the child, but found no trace of her.
She said she keeps thinking about the TIP victims out there and what it really means to them, as she particularly remembers a survivor telling her, “Never stop, because what will happen to them that are out there?” That is just a single motivating factor pushing government to fight harder to save and offer justice to every case, every victim, Broomes, now Minister within the Ministry of Natural Resources, said.
“Even if it’s one, even if it’s a suspected case, it is too many, that’s one too many,” the minister pointed out.
She said while many may join in supporting the fight against TIP in terms of sexual exploitation, Guyanese are still to understand what is “Labour-trafficking.”
She said while many believe girls and women are involved in prostitution for social gains, there are unwilling participants and many too weak an army against the predators, the enemies they stand against.
She has met and rescued university students who went to the interior for jobs, giving up an office work in Georgetown for a higher-paying job at an internet café in the interior for a salary of $250,000 a month, just to fund their education. Those girls found themselves in the calamity of being trafficked.
“It is not only that this woman wants to go out there and she doesn’t have no[sic] dignity or that she wants to go and prostitute to make money. That is not the story.”
She said Guyana’s latest accomplishment is the beginning of a new journey and paves the way for a higher level of combat.
“My experience in trafficking is not a nice one either, so I think that it is the beginning and a step in the right direction and it will open up the conversations, the policy persons with the political will [be] kicking up also,” Minister Broomes said.
She told the Guyana Chronicle that while TIP does not fall directly under her ministry, she would “never stop contributing my bits and pieces or sharing my experiences in fighting against modern day slavery. Be it I’m a minister or not I will never stop.”
The Ministry of Natural Resources has already started awareness campaigns and training sessions and has partnered with other ministries to prevent TIP.
Government is working on designing policies dealing with the rights, protection and respect of women in the extractive industry, so that women are “able to work equally alongside men in the extractive industry and not fall prey to Trafficking in Persons in the interior.”
She commended the efforts of the Guyana Police Force, as they were responsible for the identification of the crime and administering charges in a case in which one perpetrator was handed three years jail. She also recognised the efforts of the Ministry of Social Protection for providing social support, the victim, other stakeholders, and the Guyana Women Miners Organisation, which was actively involved in the case.
Minister Broomes also recognised the passion President David Granger, First Lady Sandra Granger and Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan have also developed to fight TIP.
“I think it’s a nasty crime and it’s one of the worst experiences that I have ever had [fighting it]. Guyana will very soon be in a place where persons will understand Trafficking in Persons is a crime. This Government is going to put trafficking where it is supposed to be.”