14-year-old among four rescued from life of prostitution in Mahdia

Nov 19, 2013 News

By Abena Rockcliffe
The Guyana Women Miners Organization (GWMO) on Sunday rescued four young girls who were, according to reports, involuntarily living a life of prostitution in the gold mining community of Mahdia.

President of the GWMO, Simona Broomes

As part of its sustained efforts to combat human trafficking in Guyana, the GWMO, headed by internationally recognized Simona Broomes, on Saturday, ventured down to Mahdia, Region 8 and on Sunday made the rescue.
The four teenagers’, aged 14 to 17 were rescued from different shops. Two of them are reportedly sixteen years of age, while one is fourteen and the other, seventeen.
This publication understands that they are from Regions 4, 3, 9 and 10.
Kaieteur News has learnt that the youngest of the four victims recounted that she initially traveled to Mahdia in search of a job but suffered severe beatings at the hands of the shop owner who employed her.
The teen told the GWMO that she was then forced to seek employment at another shop where she found herself granting sexual favours to miners in exchange for cash.
Yesterday Broomes was still taken up with the matter and had little time to furnish Kaieteur News with further information but noted that members of the GWMO are working with the Human Services Ministry in rendering further assistance to the teenagers.
Broomes was honored by the United States (U.S) as one of its International Heroes in the fight against human trafficking.
On June, 19 the U.S. issued its 2013 Report on Human Trafficking, which again criticized Guyana for allowing girls and foreign women to be forced into prostitution and for relying on child labour.
The report accused Guyana of not doing enough to protect victims or hold trafficking suspects accountable. It said traffickers are attracted to Guyana’s interior mining communities because there is limited state supervision. That’s where Broomes has stepped in, U.S. officials say.
The Government of Guyana has been consistently critical of the U.S Human Trafficking Report and the picture it paints of Guyana.
Broomes recently began carrying a gun after she was assaulted during one of her trips earlier this year, and began organizing fund raisers to help accumulate money to pay for her trips after death threats forced her to close her mining equipment business about two months ago.