Guyana has highest child labour rate in Latin America, Caribbean

Oct 22, 2016 News

The Caribbean Human Development Report 2016 has recorded that the child labour rate in Guyana is at 16.4 per cent, the only country above the Latin America and Caribbean average of 11 per cent.
According to the UNDP, in the Caribbean, child labour rates fluctuate between Guyana’s rate and the lowest of 0.7 per cent in Trinidad and Tobago.
Kenroy Roach, Regional Advisor, UNDP, said at the report’s launch on Thursday, that in the Caribbean there exists very high youth unemployment. He said that in the CHDR 2012 report the issue had been linked with insecurities within the region. He said that youths and children continue to be one of the most vulnerable groups in society.
The children’s vulnerability have found them being exploited in labour conditions and exposed to hazardous conditions at work, in the streets. They are the school dropouts and the abused.
The report which was launched at the University of Guyana, noted that the risk factors responsible for the vulnerability are poverty, ineffective schools, abusive families, ineffective legislation and a lack of awareness.
Roach said that he believes that by addressing the youth vulnerability issue focusing on risk factors, strengthening families and communities and creating avenues for young people’s productive participation, Caribbean countries can break the economic structural issues.
According to the UNDP report, Caribbean youths are underachieving educationally at the secondary school level and this is associated with poverty, juvenile crime and violence.
Young males were identified as the main victims and the main perpetrators of crime in the Caribbean. Violence is starting at a younger age than in the past, he added.
“Unemployment rates are much higher among youths whose unemployment rate is twice to three times the adult unemployment rate.”
Roach said that women have been doing better than their male counterparts educationally. This was reflected in the report which stated that women have higher access to and better performance in secondary and tertiary education than men.
The report states that good educational attainment or education at the secondary and post-secondary level is found to be associated with lower teenage pregnancy and a reduction in violence against women.
On this issue Roach said, “While women are performing better academically, and we’re seeing more women graduating from universities and so on, that is not translated into women having higher paying jobs, women being in positions leadership and authority and so on.”
Additionally, the UNDP representative said that there co-varying risks which show several vulnerabilities adding up which put women at a higher risk as compared to their counterparts.

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