The President also must bring an end to the tragedy of hinterland existence

May 31, 2023 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News- The President has shown the art of compromise in his response to the Mahdia tragedy. The Opposition called for Independence Day to be declared a national day of mourning. Almost immediately, the President declared three days of national mourning. He also dedicated Independence Day events to the memories of the children.

The Opposition now wants the President to appoint an independent Commission of Inquiry and for it to comprise of persons who have the respect of all stakeholders. On the surface, this is a reasonable demand but in Guyana, it is a mission impossible to find persons who would enjoy the confidence of all stakeholders. There have also been calls for a much wider inquiry into the deaths of the 19 children. These calls have echoed sentiments that there are much wider factors which should be taken into account.

The Guyana Human Rights Association in a recent statement has raised one of these wider concerns: the impact of mining on Indigenous communities. It is said that mining has created a litany of social woes including sexual molestation, human trafficking and abuse of girls and women. But there are wider social and economic concerns which impact on hinterland education. A much large study is therefore needed, one which will also cover hinterland education, which is one of the greatest failures of public education.

It makes no sense for government to spend billions each year to board and lodge children in hinterland dormitories when there is a failure rate of 70% at the CSEC in hinterland communities. It makes no sense for parents to have to shoulder the financial burdens and emotional stress of sending their children away from home to attend secondary schools, only for these children to return without qualifications and employable skills. The government therefore has to consider two kinds of inquiries. The first should be into the causes of the fire, the immediate response to the fire and whether the fire and the loss of lives could have been prevented and injuries reduced.

This should be the task of a one-man Commission of Inquiry. It would be much easier to find one person that enjoys the confidence of all stakeholders. Someone from the Caribbean can be invited to be this one-person Commission of Inquiry. But there is a need for a broader study of social and economic conditions of Indigenous communities. Such a study could zero-in on the effects of mining on Indigenous peoples and specifically on its effects on women and girls. Other issues which can be addressed in this broader study would be the state of education, health, security, unemployment and sexual and substance abuse.

In this way, the government would be satisfying the two most principal demands that have emerged from the recent tragedy: it would be investigating the causes and response to the fire and it would also be examining wider social and economic concerns of Amerindian communities. In terms of the latter, the government should consider inviting the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), PAHO/WHO and the UNDP to come together to undertake this study of Indigenous communities. The study should serve as the basis for formulating a national programme for Indigenous peoples. UNICEF had in 2017 done a situational analysis of Indigenous women and children in Guyana. That study found high rates of male migration, low levels of formal female employment, poor access to health services and deficiencies in the quality of education.

In relation to education, there were extremely damaging findings which pointed to more than a simple crisis in hinterland education. The UNICEF study found that enrollment was major issue in nursery and secondary education in the hinterland. That has not been fixed since. It found a high rate of secondary school dropouts among Indigenous children. The poor quality of education enjoyed by Indigenous children helped to perpetuate poverty, low qualifications, limited skills and lowly paid jobs. This too has not changed in the 6 years since the study was done.

President Ali has been badly shaken by the deaths of those 19 children. It is obvious from his visage and bearing over the past week that he was struggling to compose himself.  The least which he can do in honour of those children is not only to ensure that another such tragedy does not reoccur but also to bring an end to the social and economic tragedy which today constitutes Indigenous people’s existence.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

 

 

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• CSEC, Mahdia tragedy, PAHO, Peeping Tom, UNDP, WHO

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