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US will not apologise or withdraw TIP report – Head of Global Office
Ambassador Luis C De Baca
The United States government yesterday said it has no apology to offer Guyana and would not be withdrawing its findings on trafficking in persons here.
Minister of Human Services and Social Security Manickchand had dismissed as “crap” the report on Guyana as contained in the US State Department’s 2010 Global Trafficking in Persons report, which placed this country on a Tier Two Watch List.
“We stand by our report,” said Luis C De Baca, Ambassador-at-large and head of the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons office. He was speaking during a briefing with local journalists at the US Embassy held via video conference from Washington.
The 2010 report named Guyana as a source country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced prostitution and forced labour.
De Baca said the report was prepared after talks with government officials, the international community, non-governmental organsiations, civil society and churches. The Ambassador said he could not reveal specific sources of information, but said the government was the “primary source” of information for the report.
Minister Manickchand had claimed that the government knew nothing of a project the report mentions, in which 984 children were withdrawn from exploitive child labour in logging and saw-milling, fishing, hazardous farming, factory work, mining, and freight handling from 2005 to 2009.
Ambassador De Baca said that project was done in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the International Labour Organisation. He directed reporters to the US Department of Labour website where details of the project could be found.
According to a report posted on the website, the project “Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in Guyana” also prevented 2,084 children from exploitive child labour. The geographic regions targeted include Regions 2, 3, 4, 5, as well as Bartica in Region 7, Linden in Region 10, and Georgetown.
The project was done on a grant from Partners of the Americas and the report lists several schools, churches and women and youth organizations as implementing partners.
According to the report, the project involved collaboration with the Bureau of Statistics, the government and UNICEF to construct a database on child labour and education.
The report said the children were removed from exploitive child labour situations “with the support of local authorities and school welfare officers.”
Four days after the release of the report and the government’s rejection of it, the US Embassy in Georgetown told the government the Global Trafficking in Persons (GTIP) office in the State Department was desirous of discussing Guyana’s public concerns regarding the US-issued TIP report.
The Government Information Agency (GINA) said Minister Manickchand, in speaking with Ambassador C De Baca last Monday, insisted that the conclusions and recommendations in the report are based on an earlier inaccuracy about large numbers of traffickers and trafficking victims existing in Guyana.
The Minister, GINA reported, pointed out “how preposterous the finding is that children from the country who come to town to go to school are potential victims of domestic servitude and therefore trafficking.”
“Equally senseless, she declared, was the recommendation that Guyana establish trafficking specific shelters which provide shelter, care and counseling without credible evidence of a scale of trafficking to warrant more than what currently exists through Government supported NGOs like Help and Shelter,” GINA stated.
The Minister countered the Ambassador’s invitation for Guyana to work in a partnership with the US by pointing out that the US State Department did not see it fit to have the glaring inaccuracies and baseless accusations against Guyana corrected.
Yesterday, Ambassador De Baca said he is prepared to work with the government in addressing the recommendations for Guyana in the report.
The US’ “stubborn refusal to acknowledge Guyana’s contentions and their insistence on not changing anything in the report” Manickchand said makes a favourable response by Guyana to their offer of partnership “difficult,” GINA stated.
The Guyana government said it intends to approach higher levels of the US Government and members of Congress “to correct these misleading reports.”
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