Over the last five years or so, your Eyewitness has been protesting the treatment being meted out to working girls in Georgetown. So, he wasn’t surprised when he read last week that, once again, there was a raid at a night club where twenty-six females – all Colombians and Venezuelans – were picked up and taken to CID Headquarters. While there were other clubs involved, one name keeps popping up more than any other: Red Dragon on Robb Street. In one instance, it was reported that the Guyana Police Force – CID – Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Unit, along with the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security – C-TIP – raided the Red Dragon night club in downtown GT and “rescued FORTY-FOUR female foreign nationals”.
Now, the problem your Eyewitness has is: if in fact trafficking is going on and these raids are being conducted, how come the traffickers haven’t been dealt with by the full force of the law, and put away at Lusignan or Mazaruni?? In one instance, the owner of the club had been arrested – along with another gentleman who claimed he was a clothes vendor – for trafficking – but as far as your Eyewitness’s investigation could find out, nothing was proved!!
As your Eyewitness has said on previous occasions, while he sees trafficking as a heinous crime – to peddle females against their will to be used for sex – it is clear that the girls at the night club might be selling their services quite voluntarily, thank you!! Practising the oldest profession in the world, that is!! Now, this is a horse of a completely different colour: there isn’t a civilisation on earth without sex workers. In fact, some of them – notably Chinese and Indians – were called “concubines”. They were highly trained before they were allowed to practise their profession. Music, poetry and the arts were only a few of the subjects on their curriculum.
But before long, the British imposed their Victorian norms on these women’s bodies and decided what the females could do with their own bodies. Did you even think of that? Every day of the week, citizens are admired for going out and “selling their labour” for “wages”. But what’s this “labour” we sell? Can it be separated from our bodies? It really can’t, can it? It all comes down to the negative value judgement placed on “sex work” – it’s “sinful”. And that’s the nub of the problem, innit?
Our laws still insist that the morality coming out of some tribal customs two millennia ago should dictate what women can do with their bodies. For them, it’s forbidden for anyone to run “brothels” or “bawdy houses” (Criminal Offences Act s 357; Summary Jurisdiction (Offenses) Act, §165), and working girls can be rounded up and shamed.
It’s a shame!!
…against Working Girls’ Day?
Bet you didn’t know that June 2nd is “International Whores Day”, or (less contentiously!)
“International Sex Workers Day”. And that’s too bad. In an age when the ABCDEU Consulates join our LGBTQ community and march through the streets of Georgetown celebrating “Gay Pride”, we still have a whole community of folks stigmatized for EARNING a living!!
Now, Guyana’s supposed to have a Sex Workers Coalition, and your Eyewitness had hoped they’d be in the streets demanding that sex work not be driven underground – where the workers can REALLY be exploited.
Interestingly, in the 60s independence era, there were scads of these institutions in GT where working girls could ply their trade. “Ho’-tels” like Garmont on Lombard Street catered to the lower strata, while Cambridge and Oxford – near State House – were more upscale. The aptly named “Sangam” – meeting place – near Freedom House was in between!!
Sex workers of the world, unite!! You have nothing to lose but your chains of shame!!
…against road carnage
One of the ways we may be able to reduce the carnage on the roads is to tighten the requirements for driving licences to be issued. An intensive course in defensive driving must be introduced.
