Prospective diplomats trained in human trafficking

With the main focus of rescuing vulnerable persons from human trafficking and seeking to eliminate the scourge of this issue within Guyana, 24 prospective diplomats were on Monday facilitated by the Ministerial Task Force in a one-day Trafficking In Persons (TIP) workshop.

Held at the Police Training Centre on Camp Street, Georgetown, a series of activities and discussions were organised to provide these stakeholders with the knowledge and skills to address and successfully deal with human trafficking. Till date, human trafficking remains at the top of the list for the most profitable criminal activity.
Giving his remarks, the Coordinator of the Ministerial Task Force on TIP, Oliver Profitt noted that the Task Force has been working assiduously to have systems in place to zero in on these cases. These include a Code of Conduct which they are seeking to establish with assistance from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).
“We are going to have some more stringent measures put in place. In addition to that, we welcome the Caribbean Development Bank who we have started now to request expressions of interest for persons to provide consultancy on a Code of Conduct and a training manual for the Task Force,” Profitt said.
He further mentioned, “To help with our investigations, we also want to launch a human friendly document on the combating of Trafficking In Persons Act Chapter 10:06.”
While noting that Trafficking In Persons can be difficult to detect, Profitt indicated that it must be done since a person’s human rights are violated when they are subjected to such circumstances. So far, close to half of the cases that were filed by the Police indicate that many of the victims are foreigners.
“According to our numbers, 46 per cent of victims that we would’ve detected through the Police statistics are shown to be from overseas. There is definitely a cross border element to Trafficking In Persons even though it happens locally or within the country.”
Director of Multilateral and Global Affairs at the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Troy Torrington, once again reminded the potential diplomats that trafficking is abuse to a person’s human rights. He noted that according to the United Nation’s (UN) statistics, a majority of trafficked persons are women and girls.
“According to that data, two-thirds of the identified victims of human trafficking are women and two in three child victims in human trafficking are young girls. The situation in Guyana is equally concerning. From my perspective, every case of human trafficking is a cost to our society,” said Torrington.
In the past, similar workshops have been conducted with mines officers, community policing groups and Police prosecutors so as to widen the scope of spreading awareness when addressing human trafficking.