A post recently appeared on social media platform, facebook, under a questionable name, with the following words: “Need local girls to work at a bar in the interior… serious enquires only… 6467079

Subsequently, a news release informed: “On Friday, November 13, an operation conducted by members of the Guyana Police Force, with support from the Human Services Ministry, rescued 19 adult females suspected to be victims of human trafficking from an establishment in Region Three.
Three children were also rescued, a release from the Ministry of Human Services said today.
The women and children are now in the protective care of the Ministry, while the alleged perpetrators are in police custody”
Combating of Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Act of 2005 guarantees the safety and protection of all victims and ensures their rights are respected and not violated.
Members of the public are encouraged to report all suspicious TIP activities to the Ministry’s TIP hotline numbers: 227-4083, 623-5030 or 624-0079 (Spanish hotline). Persons can also visit the TIP Guyana Facebook page.

The release said that suspected victims and survivors of TIP are never placed in police custody, but are instead safeguarded by the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security’s Counter-Trafficking in Persons Unit.

The Social Services Minister, Vindhya Persaud, has a track record of showing interest in, and caring for, the welfare of the vulnerable in society, especially children. Her current ministerial portfolio has given her greater latitude in her social welfare work, which has now extended to the eradication of the practice of trafficking in persons in Guyana.
The minister feels strongly about the protection of children and ensuring that they have the requisite quality of childhood that would ensure a healthy combination of mental, psychological, emotional and physical growth.

Enforced child labour and trafficking in persons are absolutely heinous crimes that proliferate worldwide, and in some societies where poverty is dire, some parents feel driven to sell their own children for pittances – destroying their own children for temporary relief from their pecuniary circumstances.

Many children have been kidnapped and sold; many have been exploited by their own relatives or trusted persons in their lives; many persons – adults and children– have been tricked into slavery where they are taken away to distances and situations from which they find impossible to escape and are forced into virtual servitude.
In Guyana, many persons, especially children and females, have been lured away from their rural or hinterland homes with the promise of jobs, or by other means, only to find themselves captives of some unscrupulous persons in horrendous situations.

These twin scourges have plagued societies from time immemorial and if the minister could successfully address these criminal acts in the Guyana social landscape, then her tenure could save many victims from untold, probably lifelong, agony; not to mention lost lives that would have been restored to victims and their loved ones.
There has also emerged horrifying tales where persons are kidnapped, killed and their body parts sold to doctors working underground in organ transplant rackets.
The UK Mirror reported in December of 2014, inter alia: “one of the kidnappers has confessed to police that the girl had been sold so her organs could be harvested.”
Fox News reported on January 19, 2019 that Tanzanian authorities said that 10 children, who were kidnapped in December, were killed for their body parts.
Trafficking in persons is a major crime that proliferates in the world, and trans-continental trade in humans and human body parts seem to be gaining traction. It would take an international pact of cooperation to seriously impact this crime where the poor and vulnerable are especially susceptible to lures by inhuman, merciless criminals.