TIP unit, police arrest 49 Venezuelans in Parika raid

AN inter-agency collaboration on Friday night led to the arrest of 49 Venezuelan nationals, including children, at two separate guest houses in Parika, East Bank Essequibo (EBE).
The raid was conducted under the leadership of the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Unit of the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, along with Divisional Commander, Senior Superintendent Errol Watts, with the support of 40 other police ranks.

The first exercise was at Mottie Guest House, where the police encountered a total of nine women from Venezuela. They were all arrested.
The team then conducted searches at Razon Hotel, where several rooms were searched, and 14 males and 26 women, including two children, all from Venezuela, were arrested.
The men were placed into custody at the La Parfaite Harmonie Police Station on the West Bank of Demerara (WBD), and the females were placed in custody at the Cove and John Police Station on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD).

For the fourth consecutive year, Guyana has maintained its Tier One ranking for efforts to combat human trafficking, although the government has been called upon to implement and train law enforcement officials and front-line responders in written trauma-informed victim identification and referral procedures.

While Tier One is the highest ranking level there is, it does not mean that a country has no human trafficking problems, or that it is doing enough to address them.
Rather, the ranking, as explained by the United States State Department 2020 Report on TIP, means that a government has made efforts to address the problems that meet the US’ Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s minimum standards.

And to maintain the Tier One ranking, governments need to demonstrate appreciable progress each year in combatting trafficking.
Guyana and the Bahamas are the only two Caribbean countries to attain the Tier One ranking, as most of the other Caribbean countries are on Tier Two, except for Barbados, which is on the Tier Two watch list.