The Coil: A Minister walks into a bawdy house…. and finds a woman with a teddy bear
The woman in the picture stands elegantly on the old wooden stelling. Her head is thrown back and she smiles confidently at the photographer from GINA. She holds a teddy bear in her hand.
The GINA caption on the picture says “ One of the alleged perpetrators, Maria De Socorro Nascimento Lages and others who will be assisting the police in their investigation” .
The GINA story further states that “According to Minister Broomes, one of the alleged perpetrators who was charged with TIP and released on $1M bail, was also held for questioning after she walked into the station with two of the girls’ passports.”
At this stage, everything is alleged. The two perpetrators are named are a woman and a man. GINA leaves us to assume that the woman moving the teddy bear out of Bartica is Maria. Maria is one of the people swept up by Minister within the Ministry of Social Protection, Simona Broomes and a team in Trafficking in Persons (TIP) raid early on Sunday 8th June, 2015.
The previous administration did not seem to have a problem with Maria, as they continued to object to the United States Department reports on Trafficking in Guyana. Maria was charged in 2011 with five charges of procuring women to prostitute. The charges were later dismissed and Maria moved to Bartica…
Minister Broomes was recognised as an International TIP Hero by the United States in 2013. Her work with the Guyana Women’s Miners Organisation (GWMO) has resulted in a public awareness of the problem in Guyana. Her work also highlighted the problems of dealing with trafficking after cases have been identified.
There are failures in social services, police and the general justice system, especially as it relates to prosecution. While the prosecution seems to fail on evidence, there might be other issues as well.
Trafficking or Prostitution?
On June 10th, Kinesha Thom from the Guyana Sex Workers Coalition expressed concerns that Minister Broomes was trying to deal with prostitution and not Trafficking. There is a report that the TIP Unit in the Ministry of Home Affairs in April 2015 which seems to agree with Ms Thom. The TIP Unit said that they found “no evidence of trafficking” in Mahdia after reports from GWMO. They found several other violations of laws.
The TIP Unit team in their statement said that “It is evident that members of the GWMO seek to automatically apply the term ‘trafficking in persons’ in all instances when they encounter minors or young adult females in interior regions. The Task Force has repeatedly sought to distinguish between terms such as “child labour”, “prostitution”, and “trafficking in persons” in its awareness sessions and workshops as they are respectively unique in nature,” the statement read.
Minister Broomes on June 10th 2015 said that she does not confuse TIP with prostitution. She said that “I am saying that even if you want to be a prostitute you should be respected, one should not violate your human rights, one should not traffic you, one should not hold you ransom “
The “Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime” called the “Palermo Protocol” describes trafficking in Article 3 :-
For the purposes of this Protocol:
(a) “Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs;
(b) The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) have been used;
(c) The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered “trafficking in persons” even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article;
(d) “Child” shall mean any person under eighteen years of age.
Trafficking has several nuances. The part (b)about consent is complicated. Do the failures to prosecute have anything to do with the complications around consent? What causes people’s ‘consent to be exploited’? Do people give up their passports willingly and put themselves at risk to improve their lives? Do they view certain kinds of exploitation as the lesser evil than other kinds? How do these circumstances then fit into the criminal justice system? What if the traffickers know the relatives of victims and would cause more harm to them?
Minister Broomes and the government should work with the Guyana Sex Workers Coalition (GSWC) and others to seek a common definition of trafficking in the Guyana context. The GSWC should probably be invited to be an active part of the TIP Unit. Many Guyanese would probably have experiences of being “held to ransom” as they did their work while employers “were sorting out work permits”. There are anecdotes of other persons in Guyana who ‘cannot get their airfare’ to go back to their homes as was promised even if they have free movement within the country or could send money back home.
Rescuing and Charging Victims
Minister Broomes is determined that the women are victims of TIP. Most of the public probably feel the same given the news of the raid. The raid resulted in 11 women charged with illegal entry and overstaying their welcome. The pictures and the names of the women were in the papers. Did the women wonder how they were rescued only to be ridiculed (Do the crime, pay the time as some people noted)? Some citizens might have been confused – how does a country charge victims?
In a letter to the Editor, Andaiye, Karen De Souza and Alissa note that “Everywhere in the world anti-trafficking in persons campaigning too often serves as a cover for the pursuit of sex workers and “ïllegal immigrants.” “ In March of 2015, 11 ‘Illegal’ Nepalese who the Ministry identified as TIP victims were also charged and their names published.
Article “6.1. of the Palermo Protocol states that “In appropriate cases and to the extent possible under its domestic law, each State Party shall protect the privacy and identity of victims of trafficking in persons, including, inter alia, by making legal proceedings relating to such trafficking confidential. “
There has been official condemnation of the media reporting.
The Palermo Protocol does not prevent countries from charging victims of trafficking with immigration related crimes. The non-binding Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking published by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights asks that “Trafficked persons shall not be detained, charged or prosecuted for the illegality of their entry into or residence in countries of transit and destination, or for their involvement in unlawful activities to the extent that such involvement is a direct consequence of their situation as trafficked persons.”
A teacher in Guyana told me of a bright student who called her from the “backdam”. The teacher said the 16 year old student was “working to raise money’ for exam fees. The teacher was not sure what to do – since she was not sure of the nature of the work, 16 is the age of consent, and she wanted the girl to write her exams and not be charged with any crimes or have to deal with the shame of court.
The girl was calling her so she did not think the girl was in any trouble.
The GWMO had reported on its frustration with the way the justice system dealt with trafficking victims. Now with the naming and shaming, what would other people do if they fear prosecution more than their existing circumstances?
On the same day that Guyana allowed the naming and shaming of eleven women the Minister had rescued. Trinidadian businesswoman Alana Lagan was placed on bail in Trinidad after being charged with trafficking two Guyanese . This was three weeks after her husband was murdered. The identities of the two Guyanese have not been put in the papers. To date, there are no reports of the Guyanese being charged with anything.
It has been one week since the raid in Bartica. Minister Broomes and eleven of the women she rescued have been in the media. There is no news of Maria and her teddy bear or anyone else appearing in court to be charged with trafficking. The government and the rest of the society have some important lessons to learn from last Sunday’s episode if we want to be serious about fixing the circumstances which enable trafficking.
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