…to working girls’ rights?
Your Eyewitness was astounded to read that the Guyana Police Force – CID – Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Unit, along with the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security – C-TIP – raided a night club in downtown GT and “rescued FORTY-FOUR female foreign nationals”. Now, we’ve been down this road before, haven’t we?? Because TIP is the international crime du jour and is illegal in Guyana, the Police nab working girls as being trafficked!! Your Eyewitness remembers one then PNC-minister-to-be hauling eighteen girls plying their ancient trade in Bartica all the way to GT – and had to let them go. But soliciting sex for money – prostitution – is also illegal. Remember, we don’t commemorate “International Whores Day” or, less contentiously, “International Sex Workers Day”; so, why weren’t the women picked up for that offence?
Simply that it ain’t so easy for the police prove those forty-four females were soliciting!! Your Eyewitness didn’t notice any presumed Johns picked up, and wants to see how they’ll prove the women were trafficked. Cause they gotta prove these women were “coerced” to perform “labour” against their will. Did the police tipster provide any hard evidence of “trafficking”? Or were these girls profiled and arrested just because they were in a nightclub??
Your Eyewitness knows about the horrors of human trafficking, but it seems that the police are using the old SOCU tactic of arresting first and investigating after. The truth of the matter is these girls are all probably Venezuelans who’re doing their darndest to survive after their lives were destroyed by Mad Maduro.
During the Burnham dictatorship, weren’t our women plying their trade all across the Caribbean – including in Suriname?? Shouldn’t we be more sympathetic to the Venezuelan plight?
Every day of the week, good 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 all comes down to the negative value judgement placed on “sex work” – it’s “sinful”. And that’s the nub of the problem, innit? Some folks insist that the morality coming out of some tribal customs of two millennia ago should dictate what women can do with their bodies today.
But even here, there are some anomalies in Guyanese law. While prostitution is prohibited explicitly for males – who can’t even engage in the sex act with each other, much less sell the services — the TIP Law is just a more circuitous prohibition for women. But Guyana is supposed to have a Sex Workers Coalition, and your Eyewitness had hoped they would’ve been in the streets demanding that sex work not be driven underground – where the workers can really be exploited.
Sex workers of the world, unite!! You have nothing to lose but your chains of shame!!
…to the Haiti force?
As the international community split hairs about who’s gonna provide the bodies for the force they agree Haiti needs to restore order, the killing fields keep spreading. How many more, Jah?? Initially, the US had taken the lead, but had to back off since many saw them as becoming the “occupying force” they’d historically been after Haiti threw out colonial France. They’d also taken the lead on raising the US$700 million that’s gonna be necessary to fund the operation – but last your Eyewitness heard, just US$70 million or so had been forthcoming.
The UN, which has to give its blessing – and has done so – isn’t getting further involved, after the embarrassment of its last force spreading cholera that killed thousands of Haitians – not to mention raping their women. On the warm bodies, the US convinced Kenya to send 1000 policemen, and Bahamas, Bangladesh, Benin and Chad have also committed forces.
Caricom?? Barbados says they’ll muster 50 soldiers. Will the local supporters of Haitian migration volunteer?
…to the PPP grants?
Folks have gotten so bombarded by the Opposition’s claims that the PPP government’s handing out grants through the party that a riot broke out on rumours that Freedom House was awash with cash.
