When young girls go missing

Jun 25, 2013 Editorial

The Americans made a show of honouring Simona Broomes, head of the Guyana Women Miners Association for the role she has been playing in combating human trafficking. This is a global problem. In Mexico many households are mourning the disappearance of family members, particularly children. The story is the same with every family that is in this plight.
The children are on the streets either running an errand or heading to or from school when they disappear. There are private organisations set up by individuals who may have lost some relatives in this manner. Some have been lucky to find a few of the missing persons but for the greater part, the task is almost insurmountable.
Over the weekend an international news media focused on this aspect of human life. The stories were horrific. There were reports out of Singapore and Malaysia and Thailand. Children have simply been snatched or traded to begin life as beggars or child prostitutes and even drug runners.
Again there have been groups searching for these children and just as is the case in Mexico there have been some successes but the vast majority simply disappear into thin air. The authorities have found that these people are shipped across borders.
In Guyana there are numerous reports of missing children, mainly young girls and there is the view that these people are trafficked. There were initial reports of some of these young persons being moved across the borders into Suriname and even Cayenne. And this could be understood because the borders are porous.
Just recently a case broke of some young Guyanese women being trafficked to Barbados where they served as dancers in clubs and as prostitutes. The Barbados police have smashed the ring and some people are before the courts.
We have not heard of cases of people being moved into Brazil and Venezuela although this should not be ruled out.
The vast majority of cases though are people who move into the gold mining areas either by the lure of large sums of money or of high paying jobs. Poverty is rampant in Guyana and young people always want material things. These are the people who could be easily lured away from home. Hardly a day goes by without some seeking the service of the media to help locate a young person.
Many of these actually ran away from home with a friend on the promise of something lucrative. The reality was different and Ms Broomes has intervened to save some of these young women. She spoke of putting her life on the line to rescue four young girls, two of them below the age of consent.
The people who engage in trafficking these young girls do not see themselves as human traffickers. They talk of their investment in the girls and the need to make their money. The girls, for their part, are often used as slaves. They are paid a fraction of what they earn through the use of their bodies and they are given the barest minimum of shelter. As Ms Broomes found out, some of them are beaten. When her story aired the world took notice. This was happening in a country where the authorities denied that there was human trafficking.
Such was the denial that the government had to be pushed to enact legislation to deal with human trafficking. But as the world knows, there could be all the legislation unless there is the wherewithal to support the legislation then the entire exercise is a waste of time. So we find that law enforcement officers permit underage girls to enter hinterland locations and to offer themselves as prostitutes.
These very officers refused to help Ms Broomes when she rescued four girls recently. At the same time the volume of prosecution does not reflect the extent of human trafficking. It is a pity that it would seem that only one woman is tackling this issue head on. There are government departments set up to deal with human trafficking but these appear not to be as effective as Ms Broomes. And the foreign powers have taken note.

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When young girls go missing

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