On Friday, August 23, in a press conference, Winston Felix, the Minister of Citizenship of the Government of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana (South America), declared that no Haitian national on Guyanese soil had been involved as a victim or as an author in traffics of people.

Recall that media had claimed, without proving it, that many Haitians had arrived in Guyana, victims of human trafficking and that Haitians were also illegally registered to vote in the next elections...

Minister Winston Felix, who points to some politicians and opposition media behind this false information, said "none of the police services in charge of the investigation found any evidence of the involvement of Haitian trafficking in human beings [...] but we have detected other nationalities."

"[...] No one denies that Haitians are the most likely to arrive in Guyana from the Caribbean, but the information disseminated by the media is grossly incorrect"

Felix said that Haitians had relied on free movement in the region to visit Guyana and other states. In 2019, legislative amendments were made to Schedule II to the Immigration Act, Cap. 14:02 to include Haiti among the beneficiaries of the Caribbean Single Market Economy (CSME), which facilitates free movement in the region and the 6-month automatic entry and stay in CARICOM countries, which could explained the rise of Haitian travelers in Guyana

Minister Felix stated that the majority of Haitians used Guyana only as a transit point to Brazil, French Guiana in Suriname and other parts of South America, where most of their relatives live, taking advantage of the porosity of the little-guarded borders in the East with Suriname, in the West with Venezuela and in the South with Brazil.

For his part, the Ministerial Working Group on Trafficking in Persons reported that during the first three months of this year, the police interviewed 67 victims, but none was Haitian, recalling "It is important to note that The Government of Guyana is determined to ensure that Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans and other foreign nationals using various ports of entry on our territory, continue to be treated with the same respect as citizens in accordance with our laws."

SL/ HaitiLibre