Guyana must ensure that child labour is completely removed

May 03, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
I previously published a letter on child labour in your newspaper last week. I continue on the same topic in this current letter. An approximately 14,000 workers (Amerindians, Sugar Workers, Rice Farmers and Public Servants) will be affected by the end of December, 2017 after, just 31 months in office by APNU+AFC. A regular family in our country has about two children. This means over 28, 000 children will be affected by the decisions on the sugar industry and other industries made by a Government who continuously says “It’s a Caring Government.” 28,000 children will be forced to drop out of school, since the breadwinner for the family doesn’t have a job.
Many of these workers in the sugar and rice industry are over 40 years old, and do not have any other skill/talent. How will they survive? How will 28,000 children survive? Where in this “Run Down” country, will the 14, 000 workers find jobs? The devastating result will be 28, 000 children will be engaged in child labour. This is in addition to the few thousands which already exist. The recent VAT on education will not only affect private school proprietors, teachers and students, but also teachers and students in the public education system too. This is another “Hardship” for the 28, 000 children.
Let me once again remind you that child labor involves at least one of the following characteristics:
· Violates a nation’s minimum age laws
· Threatens children’s physical, mental, or emotional well-being
· Involves intolerable abuse, such as child slavery, child trafficking, debt bondage, forced labor, or illicit activities
· Prevents children from going to school
· Uses children to undermine labor standards
At the rate and mind set with which our “Caring Government” is moving, our nation will be guilty of all the above mentioned in the near future. Many child labourers do not attend school at all. Others combine school and work but often to the detriment of their education. Lacking adequate education and skills as adults, former child labourers, are more likely to end up in poorly paid, insecure work or to be unemployed.
In turn there is a high probability that their own children will end up in child labour situations. Breaking this cycle of disadvantage is a global challenge and education has a key role to play. Free and compulsory education of good quality up to the minimum age for admission to employment is a key tool in ending child labour. Attendance at school removes children in part at least from the labour market and lays the basis for the acquisition of employable skills needed for future gainful employment.
In the Millennium Development Goals the United Nations set the target of ensuring that by 2015 all boys and girls complete a full course of primary education. In 2015 when the PPP/C Administration demitted office, Guyana would have already achieved Universal Primary Education, that is, all children in our country had access to Primary Education, and we were a few “stone’s throw” away from achieving Universal Secondary Education.
It’s heartbreaking to think that in this age of technology and communications, where we know everything that’s happening in the farthest corner of the world, child labor will be dominating our country in the near future. This is one of the biggest roadblocks to human rights worldwide. In an ideal world, our children, our future generation, should be given the opportunity to have a childhood and develop their abilities in a positive environment, not working in factories or in the fields, without pay, in less than human conditions.
The issue of child labour is guided by three main international conventions: the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 138 concerning minimum age for admission to employment and Recommendation No. 146 (1973); ILO Convention No. 182 concerning the prohibition and immediate action for the elimination of the worst forms of child labour and Recommendation No. 190 (1999); and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. These conventions frame the concept of child labour and form the basis for child labour legislation enacted by countries that are signatories. Guyana is a signatory to all that are listed above.
Suresh Singh
Young Educator

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