Guyana - IOM Guyana, with the support of IOM Jamaica, and in partnership with the Ministry of Social Protection and the US Embassy in Georgetown, has organized a series of three counter trafficking trainings.

The workshops, which ran over two weeks, were funded by the US Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and trained 99 people in the identification, referral and protection of victims of trafficking.

Participants included representatives from the Ministry of Social Protection, the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Communities, the Childcare and Protection Agency, the Indigenous Peoples’ Commission, the Guyana Forestry Commission, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission and local NGOs Food for the Poor and Help and Shelter.

“This underground business cannot be allowed to thrive and every effort will be made by this government to protect potential victims,” said Minister of Social Protection Volda Lawrence.

“We have to ensure that we find these perpetrators, irrespective of who they are, rich or poor, high or low, we have to and we must bring them to justice,” she added.

The trainings opened just one week after the release of US State Department’s 2016 Trafficking in Persons (TiP) Report, in which Guyana was upgraded to Tier 2, after spending three years on the Tier 2 Watch List.

For more information, please contact Nathalie Hanley at IOM Guyana, Tel:  +592 225 37 45, Email: nhanley@iom.int