By Mark DaCosta- Guyana has just been ranked among the world’s best performers in the fight against human trafficking, yet the detail behind that ranking should trouble us. Trafficking is the recruitment, transport, harbouring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception in order to exploit them. Where children are concerned, no coercion need be proved.
It differs from smuggling, in which a migrant usually consents to being moved. It is a local crime because it thrives in our mining camps and hinterland communities. It is an international one because the profits, estimated by the International Labour Organization at US$236 billion a year for forced labour generally, sustain networks that span borders.
Each year the United States State Department grades governments on their response in its Trafficking in Persons Report. Guyana has kept its Tier 1 ranking in the 2026 edition, and the Home Affairs Ministry notes that it has held that ranking every year since 2017. The grading rests on the minimum standards of the US Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
Governments are judged on four broad fronts: whether they prosecute traffickers and impose stiff penalties, whether they identify and protect victims, whether they prevent the crime through awareness and oversight, and whether they work in partnership with others.
There are four tiers. Tier 1 means a government fully meets the standards, Tier 2 means it does not but is making significant efforts, the Watch List flags a worsening or unproven record, and Tier 3 is reserved for governments making no serious effort and can bring aid restrictions. Tier 1 is a measure of effort against a standard. It does not mean trafficking has been eliminated.
The ranking for Guyana has not slipped, but the performance beneath it has. The report itself records that the government initiated fewer investigations, identified and referred fewer victims to services, and decreased funding for protection and prevention, and that some shelters were reportedly closed. Investigations fell to 16 in 2025, against 31 in 2024, and only one trafficker was convicted. Press coverage of the report adds that 390 victims were identified but only 25 were referred to care.
Washington also faulted a slow judiciary, with trafficking trials taking an average of two years and as long as four because of shortages of trained court personnel, postponements and poorly prepared cases. Reporting also notes that the government settled one suspected labour-trafficking case rather than pursue a conviction, and that the report criticised weak regulation of recruiters serving the oil sector.
The State Department also says no officials were investigated or prosecuted for complicity, an omission that is hard to square with the UN’s warning that corruption is a core driver of trafficking.
Officials point to prosecutions, training for police and judicial officers, a transition home for victims and awareness campaigns, along with a QR code for reporting suspected cases and three hotlines, including one in Spanish.
The State Department also credited the government for securing fair labour conditions for Cuban state-affiliated workers. These matter, but they cannot offset a shrinking investigative and protective effort, especially when earlier reporting placed the greatest danger in the interior, where Warao women and other migrants are exposed to sexual and labour exploitation far from inspectors and courts.
What should happen next? The government says the report’s recommendations will guide stronger enforcement in the interior, wider victim identification among vulnerable groups and modernised oversight of labour recruitment. Citizens should hold it to that. Funding for shelters and victim services should be restored and protected.
Inspectors and investigators must be stationed where mining and logging camps actually are. Recruiters should be licensed, and workers must never pay for their own placement. Courts need enough trained staff to hear cases in months rather than years. Complicity must be investigated like any other crime, and migrants must be able to report abuse without fear of deportation. The next report will cover 2026, and it will judge whether enforcement recovers.
Tier 1 is an honour only for as long as it is earned. Our nation should aim to deserve the ranking, not merely to hold it.
