Guyana must determine through research and analysis, how serious its problems with trafficking in persons (TIP) are, political and women's activist, Andaiye says.
Once this has been established, "we have to see the laws we have and how they can help, the systems in place…, and the shelters established…," rather than jump to prosecution. "That's not how the society should approach the spectrum of social problems we have," she says.
During a recent interview, Andaiye and Karen de Souza from the Red Thread Women's Development Programme told Stabroek News that even before the phrase `trafficking in persons' had been used, the problem had been in existence in Guyana for many years.
The Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security has commissioned De Souza to conduct a research on the extent of TIP in Guyana.
Andaiye recalls that in the early 1990's, Red Thread member, Lindener, Cora Belle, who had never visited the interior before, was stunned following a visit to the Pomeroon River "not only by the general level of poverty, but she specifically kept on referring to something that we knew from reading about in other countries called bonded labour."
Belle said she had no idea that there was such a thing like "bonded labour" in Guyana. In that area, those in bonded labour, mainly Amerindians, were "lured into giving up their whole lives and not being able to move from this place where people end up giving them no money. They hold them there like hostages forever." Andaiye sees that as an example of trafficking in persons.
Andaiye recalls, too, that in their course of work, which took them to the interior over the years, "what we saw were examples of, specifically young girls who were invited to work in another part of the country." This meant they had to move from one location to another. These girls were recruited and placed in jobs other than what they had been promised or told, and, or given different sums of money from what they had been initially told.
She says Red Thread has encountered TIP problems that are internal to Guyana, though there is also TIP external to Guyana, which she says is another aspect of trafficking that has to be dealt with.
De Souza alluded to the conditions under which some of the girls are held, including being locked into the accommodation so they have no freedom to go anywhere.
De Souza says it is significant that girls are trapped in this situation because they were looking for work. Red Thread has intervened over the years in matters dealing not just with sexual exploitation but also the breaching of labour laws.
She cites as an example, a girl recruited "from the interior to do domestic work as a live-in servant.
"She does not have hours of work, a total breach of the labour regulation. She is on call 24 hours a day. She may even be on call [sexually] to the sons or the master of the house. When she tries to get out, what has happened in more than one instance, I know about, is that she is accused of stealing something very valuable so she becomes a criminal. Without the intervention of somebody who can talk to the police or talk to probation and welfare she becomes a criminal and she is locked up. That has happened time and again in Georgetown. The girls I have encountered in those situations were Amerindians. They were brought from the interior held in Georgetown and accused of stealing."
De Souza says she has also met girls in the hinterland, who are from the coast and were fooled into prostitution. she relates another incident in which one "girl was looking for a bit of adventure. She was taken to the interior, her travel was paid for, given some clothes and taken into one of these (mining) places and found that she was supposed to be a prostitute. She had wanted to see the country, essentially."
She says that for a country as poor as Guyana, the protections that are necessary in relation to trafficking are not totally different from what are in place; such as laws for domestic violence, or child abuse. What is important, she says, is for people in communities, the law enforcement agencies and others to recognise that the laws are there and that they can be applied to a specific element of the problem.
Noting that not everything that encompasses TIP is covered in one piece of legislation, she says care must be taken not to jump into situations where "you are setting up systems and agencies to deal with trafficking while... we don't have the resources to do these things."
She says too that no two trafficking-in-persons' cases are necessarily identical, hence one of the dangers of a single piece of trafficking legislation in which there might be some loophole.
And she says that even without legislation in place, education and awareness can help. There are a number of things that can be done to protect communities, such as making sure teachers, health workers and the police among others know what they are looking for. This does not require expenditure, but some energy, she says. (Miranda La Rose)