Eight TIP convictions for 2019
DPI, Guyana, Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Eight persons have so far been convicted for Trafficking in Persons (TIP) this year as Guyana continues to battle the scourge.
This was revealed by Minister of Public Security, Hon. Khemraj Ramjattan at the launch of the ‘Standard Operating Procedures for the investigation and prosecution of TIP cases in Guyana’ on Wednesday.
Three were three TIP convictions last year.
Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan.
The Guyana Police Force this year investigated 18 suspected cases of TIP which involved 138 alleged victims and 50 suspects.
Min. Ramjattan said all of the alleged victims were females with 115 being under the age of 30 and seven under the age of 18. Eighty-seven percent of the alleged victims were located in Region Four.
Venezuelans accounted for 84 percent of the alleged victims, while 11 were Guyanese and four from the Dominican Republic.
The police last year investigated 32 suspected TIP cases which included 245 alleged victims with 224 being females. Eleven of them were under 18 years old and 55 percent under the age of 26. There were 57 suspects and 17 charges laid.
Region Four accounted for half of the alleged occurrences with 162 of the alleged victims from Venezuela, 49 from Cuba, 21 locals, and 10 from the Dominican Republic.
According to Min. Ramjattan, sexual exploitation was the primary reason behind those cases. But he believed there was more going on.
“I believe that there are others that come under the category of labour exploitation. I believe that there are a number of our Amerindian girls who are being called out from the hinterland to work for people in Georgetown and other places who are being hugely exploited,” he declared.
Guyana and Belize are the only countries in the region with Tier One status according to the US Department of State. This means they have made efforts to combat human trafficking and are meeting the minimum standards of the US’s Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
The establishment of the SOPs was a collaboration between the Guyana government, the UN’s International Organization for Migration, and the US Department of State to intensify the fight against human trafficking.