IT is the belief of medical workers involved in a research on the impact on mining by the Guyana Human Rights Association, that Guyana’s fight against human trafficking, particularly the trafficking of young girls into the interior locations can only be brought to an end with the closure of ‘Kaimoos’- a colloquial term used to describe makeshift hotels in the mines.In many of these Kaimoos’, young girls, who were trafficked into the interior under the impression that they will be earning money in a decent manner, often end up selling their bodies.
Several organisations including the Guyana Women’s Miners Organisation (GWMO) have been involved in the fight against human trafficking especially in the mining territories and while there are several recorded successes, the fight has not completely ended.
Medical workers who treat these girls, even those who ply their trade consensually, are of the opinion that the most effective action to stop trafficking is to, “close the ‘kaimoos’,” the report titled ‘Sexual Harassment and Violence’ concluded. “Health workers believe that the most effective action to stop trafficking is to close the ‘kaimoos’, as long as the ‘kaimoos is there, teenagers will go”.
The report also alluded to the many cases where mature women who are shop owners, recruit women to work in their shops, but once business goes bad, the women are lured by the façade that prostitution is a lucrative job, end up plying their trade in the ‘kaimoos’ as well. This practice has resulted in the increase in young teenage pregnancy and in most cases the girls do not even know who impregnated them; an increase in sexual transmitted diseases; increase in abortions; as well as the stigma and discrimination attached to the mining industry. These unfortunate phenomena, according to the report are most evident in Regions Seven, Eight and One.
The ‘kaimoo’ life has also attracted many Brazilian women, who have become the main market for pork knockers. According to the report, one source claimed that Brazilian university students have been known to spend long vacations working as prostitutes in Guyana to avoid taking loans for educational expenses. The source speculated that they would earn $G40, – $50,000 for each sexual encounter in the ‘kaimoos’.
The medical workers are adamant that once the operation of ‘kaimoos’ continues in the mining districts, the fight against human trafficking will not end and the stigma attached to the mining industry will continue. Even as the various organisations fight against human trafficking, the fight against other unfortunate social phenomena will continue, such as the high rate of school dropouts among young girls in Regions One, Seven and Eight.
