AFC proposes shelters, fund for trafficking victims

Mar 10, 2012 News

Persons who are trafficked could be helped if shelters and a special fund are set up, Opposition Parliamentary party the Alliance for Change (AFC), has suggested.
In addition, the AFC sees the need for a massive public awareness campaign informing persons of this social plight.
Cathy Hughes, a Member of Parliament for the AFC, emphasised that the United States has identified human trafficking as a real problem in Guyana and stressed that Government should be least worried about “rankings” in reports and focus on finding solutions for this real issue.
Hughes stated that with the exception of the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security persons are unaware of other government agencies where they can go for assistance.
She noted that this situation has been ongoing for years with officials emphasizing that money is being spent on social services programmes but the crux of the matter is that there is limited emphasis on public awareness.
“If you stop a woman on the street and she hasn’t been empowered to know that if I’m in this situation (sexual or labour enslavement) I go to this, call this or I could do that’ then we have failed. The reality is that we have continued to fail. It is time we put something else in there,” Hughes said.
She added, “Trafficking in persons is a very real situation and wasting time debating with the US about ‘rankings’ is a waste of time and clearly that has not provided a solution.”
The Member of Parliament emphasised that many females, adult and minors, are lured to the mining districts to be gainfully employed but they are forced into prostitution.
According to her colleague, Valerie Garrido-Lowe, human trafficking is common in Amerindian communities where young women are looking for opportunities to earn a living and provide for their families. However, when they arrive in their work environment they are tricked by their employers, who are foreigners, into sexual enslavement.
She stressed this situation exists because the majority of the residents in Amerindian communities are poor. In addition, those communities lack appropriate skills training programmes to empower women.
Lowe acknowledged that Government has a Women of Worth programme which provides financial assistance to single parent women to establish businesses. She claimed that its benefits are not being equally distributed and as such many women are disenfranchised.
Meanwhile, Hughes emphasised that there are some women who are willingly working as Commercial Sex Workers and suggested that women are opting for this ‘line of job’ because of the absence of economic empowerment.
“We need to re-address those situations and the playing field needs to be constituted differently and that is why the AFC is talking about providing more services and benefits to single women and agencies and financial support that could deal with some of those issues,” Hughes noted.
She pointed that there needs to be a fund that could provide these women with financial resources, perhaps for about three months, while they are being transitioned into a ‘normal’ life.

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AFC proposes shelters, fund for trafficking victims

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