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There is a distinction between human smuggling and trafficking in persons
Dear Editor,
On May 16, 2009, Kaieteur News published an article titled “Guyanese human trafficker busted in Canada”.
The article was a biased and misleading. The reporter in a calculated manner led readers to believe that trafficking in persons is prevalent in Guyana contrary to recent statements made by His Excellency President Jagdeo that this is not the case.
In the article it is stated one Vita Singh along with three others, attempted to illegally smuggle two Guyanese into the United States.
The article then makes the erroneous inference that Ms Singh and her accomplices were human traffickers.
RCMP spokesman Sgt. Wesley Blair correctly identified the offence as human smuggling. According to Canadian based Media reports Mr. Blair was quoted as saying “the RCMP’s Immigration and Passport Section, along with its integrated border enforcement team, has dismantled an organised crime group – operating out of Scarborough, Ontario, and St. Stephen – involved in human smuggling.
The Kaieteur News Reporter clearly failed to make the statutory distinction between human smuggling and trafficking in persons.
Trafficking in persons involves the exploitation of people through force, coercion, threat, or deception and includes human rights abuses such as debt bondage, deprivation of liberty, or lack of control over freedom and labour.
In contradistinction, human smuggling is the facilitation, transportation, attempted transportation or illegal entry of a person(s) across an international border, in violation of one or more countries’ laws, either clandestinely or through deception, such as the use of fraudulent documents.
Unlike human smuggling, which is often a criminal commercial transaction between two willing parties, who go their separate ways once their business is complete, trafficking in persons specifically targets the trafficked person as an object of criminal exploitation.
The aim of the perpetrator from the beginning of the trafficking enterprise is to profit from the exploitation of the victim. It follows that fraud, force or coercion all plays a major role in trafficking
Human smuggling is generally with the consent of the person(s) being smuggled, who often pay large sums of money.
The majority of people who are assisted in illegally entering countries such as the United States and Canada are smuggled, rather than trafficked.
I trust that I have set the record straight.
Clement J. Rohee
Minister of Home Affairs
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