Manickchand challenges US to validate TIP report

Jun 07, 2008 News

“They have been invited to come and do an accurate survey…let’s find these hundreds of persons that they are talking about…We shall not manufacture charges against Guyanese citizens so as to satisfy the United States”

Minister of Human Services, Priya Manickchand, has challenged the United States to validate its 2008 report on trafficking in persons in Guyana while emphasising that the US base information for the report “is always, was, and remains inaccurate.”

According to Manickchand, if the US Government was looking for significant numbers of convictions “then (it) will not find (them), because we don’t have the significant numbers of trafficking cases that (the US) is talking about.”

In June 2004 Guyana was ranked as a Tier 3 country by the US for having in excess of 100 trafficking cases.
Manickchand said, “This number of 100 attracted the attention of the US who deemed us to be a country with significant trafficking and placed us on their radar who appointed themselves a monitoring body. The US has legislation which governs what must be reported on and what conditions must be satisfied by countries that have significant numbers of trafficking cases.

“So once a country is deemed to have significant trafficking cases, specific boxes on a form are ticked off in relation to that country…These boxes include whether legislation has been passed to counter trafficking, whether awareness and other prevention exercises are conducted in the country, whether shelter is provided to victims of trafficking and whether there are convictions of persons who are accused of trafficking.
“It is these ticked boxes that inform the report that is churned out about our country.”

The report recently released chastised Guyana for its prosecution rate, saying that as it relates to the prosecution, the Guyana Government made only limited progress in law enforcement efforts against traffickers over the last year.

The report stated that the government of Guyana has yet to produce an anti-trafficking conviction under the 2005 legislation.

Manickchand, in response, said that the US reports that Guyana has done well with awareness exercises, passing legislation and providing access to shelter but fails to convict persons.
The Minister is of the considered view that Guyana does not have “significant numbers of trafficking cases and so, except we were willing to manufacture charges against persons we will not be able to offer to the US significant numbers of convictions…We shall not manufacture charges against Guyanese citizens to satisfy the United States.”
Manickchand added, “The figure reported by the US in 2004 of 100 cases of trafficking cases was wrong…From 2004 to 2008, there have been nine charges instituted against persons for trafficking…So we do not even have the numbers of trafficking cases that justifies us being placed on the radar, as the very number which informs their reports is wholly inaccurate.”
She emphasized that if Guyana did not have significant numbers of trafficking incidences, “then we would not have significant numbers of convictions and it matters not what else we do in this area. Once the US information as to the extent of trafficking remains incorrect, the US will always report on us as doing badly and their report will always be wrong.”
Manickchand added that there were many issues that resembled trafficking but did not fit the criteria. “They are not actually trafficking and so cannot be addressed under the counter trafficking in persons legislation.”
She also questioned whether Guyana should inject financial resources on a problem that is only perceived by the US rather than spend the limited resources available to the country on actual offences, especially those that resemble trafficking.
Manickchand vehemently insisted that the government was committed to continuing its efforts to prevent trafficking and to countering those offences that are offensive even if they do not amount to trafficking.
The Minister, in emphasising the inaccuracy of the base information, said that the US in March had been invited to come to Guyana to do an accurate survey.
This invitation, Manickchand said, was issued to Ambassador Mark Lagon of the US State Department when she was in Washington during a two day visit.
Regarding the tier level on which Guyana has been placed, Manickchand said, “One should question which tier they are on…there isn’t a tier to describe those who are judging us.”
Tier three, the lowest rank, is the worst, where it denotes that a country is doing nothing to address trafficking in persons; tier two indicates that trafficking is being addressed with tier one being the best rank.
Guyana has remained on the ‘Tier 2 Watch List’ for a second consecutive year for failing to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat trafficking, particularly in the area of law enforcement actions against trafficking offenders.
According to the report, Guyana is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labour.
The report recommended that the country increase its efforts to investigate, prosecute, convict, and sentence trafficking offenders; confront trafficking complicity by public officials; utilize proactive police strategies such as brothel raids to rescue victims from trafficking situations; provide greater victim assistance; and expand anti-trafficking training for police and magistrates.

In July 2007, the government added human trafficking to its list of most serious crimes, but the effect of this pronouncement on the handling of trafficking cases is unclear, according to the report.
“There is reliable evidence of public complicity in trafficking by lower-level officials.” The report also lamented the fact that the government operates no shelters for trafficking victims, but it included limited funding for anti-trafficking NGOs in its 2008 budget.

According to Manickchand, this was not the case. Without government subsidy entities such as Help and Shelter could not have stayed open. “We are helping as much as is needed.”