Prisoner treatment of TIP victims must end - GWMO

Prisoner treatment of TIP victims must end – GWMO

Jul 10, 2013 News

GWMO President, Simona Broomes

The “prisoner” treatment of victims of Trafficking in Persons (TIP) and the unresponsiveness of some officers of the Human Services Ministry need to stop, in order to encourage victims to testify against their perpetrators.
And police ranks and social workers coming into contact with victims of TIP should be specially trained to understand their symptoms and behaviour.
This is according to Simona Broomes, President of Guyana Women Miners’ Organization (GWMO), who was part of a team that rescued five young ladies, ages 14, 16, 18, 20, and 26, from the sex trade in Region Seven over the weekend.
Since being rescued the victims have been assisting ranks of the Guyana Police Force with their investigations. Up to yesterday, they were at Eve Leary’s juvenile branch, giving statements of their respective ordeals.
They were also expected to identify their perpetrators, including two ranks of the Sherima Police Station, who are accused of raping two of the girls.
Broomes, during an interview with this publication, expressed disgust with a situation where the police and Ministry are not working in the interest of the victims.
According to Broomes, disrespect shown to the young ladies by some officers of police headquarters and neglect displayed by Human Services Ministry are unwarranted, since they are the victims and not the perpetrators. She explained that if ranks were specially trained to react to victims of TIP professionally, the young ladies would not have been treated like prisoners.
“The young ladies clad in revealing clothes and dirty were forced to sit on a bench at Eve Leary in view of officers and civilians. They were shouted on, stopped from speaking with each other, laughing or moving about.
The police need to understand that these girls were in a lawless environment where they were exposed to consuming alcohol, dressing inappropriately, and all sorts of crazy things. Now, they are supposedly back in the civilized world and need to be treated with dignity,” she added.
Broomes opined that some of the victims’ discomforts could have been reduced if the Ministry were more responsive. Cognizant of the victims need for proper clothing, Broomes contacted an official of the Ministry early yesterday and was promised that their needs would have been met.
However, after hours of waiting at Eve Leary for the change of clothing, Broomes contacted the official again, who made it clear that she was not at work and could not directly help.
In addition, the Ministry, which has a TIP Unit, was not expecting the victims, and so they did not have such materials on hand, Broomes added.
According to Broomes, those comments incensed her, since the Ministry should be geared to respond to such social plights. However, requests to take the girls to purchase clothing and wash their hair at a salon were turned down on the premise that the victims needed to be at Eve Leary.
Broomes said that she is infuriated about the situation and wants a complete overhaul of how victims are treated and information is obtained. She said that the GWMO is willing to have its office used as an area where the police could obtain statements from the victims and only when there is a police Identification Parade should they go to Eve Leary.
Broomes stated that information obtained from interaction with other countries indicate that Non-Governmental Organizations, police and the Ministry work hand-in-hand.
Broomes stressed that if this situation does not change, victims would be less inclined to testify against their perpetrators if they are treated as criminals. In addition, this could discourage other victims from speaking out or cooperating.