– national plan to combat child labour lacking
Guyana lacks a national plan to combat child labour and children in Guyana continue to be engaged in the worst forms of child labour, including dangerous activities in agriculture and prostitution, according to the United States Department of Labour (DOL).
The DOL’s Bureau of International Affairs in its 2011 report on the worst forms of child labour acknowledged that the Government of Guyana launched a programme to reduce child labour and increase access to quality education in rural areas. “The programme includes components to improve numeracy and literacy, provide nutritional support and raise awareness among parents. However, Guyana still has legislative gaps and lacks a national plan to combat child labour,” the report said.
Providing statistics from UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics, the report said that 23 per cent of children age 5 to 14 are working; while 94.5 per cent of them are attending school. Some 23.2 per cent of them are combining work and school. The report also said that the primary completion rate is 82 per cent
“Children in Guyana are engaged in the worst forms of child labour, including in dangerous activities in agriculture and prostitution. Children working in agriculture in Guyana may be exposed to hazards, including lifting and carrying heavy loads and working with pesticides,” the DOL report said.
It said that many Guyanese children work in domestic service and on the streets, typically as vendors or beggars. “The practice of sending children from poor rural families to live with wealthier relatives or friends in urban areas sometimes results in domestic servitude. Children employed as domestics may work long hours and are isolated in private homes, where they are susceptible to physical and sexual abuse. Children working on the streets are vulnerable to severe weather, traffic accidents and crime,” the report said.
“Commercial sexual exploitation of children is a problem in Guyana, including instances of forced prostitution. There are reports of girls as young as age 12 working as prostitutes,” it said.
The report said that although evidence is limited, “reports indicate that some children work in other dangerous occupations, including fishing, construction, forestry, welding and mining, including gold mining.”
It said that children working in fishing are susceptible to risks such as drowning and children working in forestry are believed to engage in both logging and the preservation of lumber. “Logging may require children to use dangerous tools and carry heavy loads, while preserving lumber can expose them to toxic chemicals. In mines, children work with unsafe equipment and toxic substances,” the report said.
“There is limited evidence that children are victims of both internal and international trafficking. Amerindian girls may be particularly vulnerable, as they are often trafficked to work in prostitution or domestic service,” it said.
The report noted that human trafficking is prohibited under the Combatting of Trafficking in Persons Act of 2005. “The trafficking law criminalizes child trafficking for exploitation in prostitution or pornography, but Guyana does not have legislation that addresses these issues outside a trafficking context.” It said. “Though the Criminal Law Offences Act prohibits the selling, publishing and exhibiting of obscene material, it does not explicitly proscribe child pornography. Research found no evidence of other laws that would protect domestic servants or street children,” the report said.
“Though the government is involved in efforts to combat child labour, efforts are not sufficient to reach all vulnerable children, particularly those engaged in prostitution, agriculture, domestic labour, street work and other hazardous occupations,” the DOL said in its report.
In concluding, the DOL recommended that government amend laws to prohibit all types of night work for children under 18 and amend the list of hazardous work to protect children under 18 in all sectors. It recommended too that government enact laws to explicitly prohibit child prostitution and child pornography and enact laws to provide protection for child domestic servants and street children.
In terms of policy, the DOL recommended that the government finalise and adopt a policy that addresses all relevant worst forms of child labour. It called on the government to make publicly available the results of the Child Labour Rapid Assessment Survey, which government undertook in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
