The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has approved a proposal to fund the training of some 300 people to identify problems related to trafficking in persons (TIP), Human Services Minister Bibi Shadick said.
Shadick also announced that in a week's time draft legislation on anti-human trafficking should be ready.
Speaking to officers of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) at the Brickdam head office on Wednesday afternoon, she said the first round in dealing with the problem was sensitisation.
GGMC Commissioner Robeson Benn stressed the need for a sociological study to understand what, why and how TIP was happening and how to deal with the issue given the nature of the Guyanese society.
Offering assistance in the sensitisation process, Benn said the GGMC has begun setting up mining affairs committees to interact with miners in the various districts. At every one of those encounters they talk specifically on issues relating to health, malaria, HIV/AIDS and TIP.
He said that when the ministry was ready to visit the districts, the GGMC would be able to provide "somebody to work with you."
Benn said he hoped the mining industry and the GGMC - the monitoring and regulatory body for the mining industry - were not being singled out for any special attention.
In many ways, he said local conditions are different from some other places in the Caribbean since Guyanese men for many years have had to go into the interior to be pork knockers in the gold fields, miners in the beginning of the bauxite industry, loggers in the timber industry working away from home for months on end.
Meanwhile, those trained to identify TIP cases will be able to report them to the relevant authorities and offer some amount of assistance and protection to victims. Shadick said this approach was necessary as the government was emphasising not only corrective but preventative measures as well. In the sensitisation process, which the ministry has begun, Shadick said outreaches to communities in regions across the country would be conducted. The process began with a meeting for regional representatives at Hotel Tower last month. During the week she met representatives of the business community as well.
She said the ministry plans to send officers not only to identify the problems but to make interventions where women can be taught skills. She noted that not only women and girls were being exploited but young boys as well.