GUYANA-RIGHTS-Authorities announce plan to stem Trafficking in Persons.

GEORGETOWN -- The Government has announced what it described as 'a menu of measures' to combat human trafficking with a new action plan for a two-year period beginning in 2014.

Government Information News Agency (GINA) stated that the Ministerial Task Force on Trafficking in Persons plan builds on initiatives that were already put in place in the previous 2012-2013 plan.

"There have been significant efforts to change and improve the latter on the basis of sound monitoring and evaluation," GINA stated over the weekend.

This statement comes against a backdrop of the US State Department's June 2014 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report that asserted, "Guyana is a source and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor. Guyanese and foreign women and girls-including from Venezuela, Suriname, and Brazil-are subjected to prostitution in Guyana".

Further, the TIP report charged, "The government made limited progress in holding traffickers accountable. The Combating Trafficking of Persons Act of 2005 prohibits all forms of trafficking and prescribes sufficiently stringent penalties, ranging from three years' to life imprisonment".

GINA stated, "In Guyana, the groups that appear to be more vulnerable to being trafficked than others include: young female illegal migrants from Columbia, Brazil and Venezuela, women in conflict with the law, young men and women from the hinterland, domestic workers, and undereducated...