Minister of Labour, Manzoor Nadir, has correctly challenged the United States Government to produce evidence of child labour in Guyana, and to provide proof that they removed 984 children from exploitative situations here.
This has come in the face of the US government’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report on Guyana which puts Guyana on a Tier-2 category which has created a stirring controversy because the Government of Guyana has categorically rejected and has stated that something is terribly wrong because such a categorisation puts Guyana into a group that is ranked among the highest TIP countries.
“I have noticed in response to my colleague Minister Manickchand, Ambassador C de Baca has condescendingly dismissed my call for the U.S. to produce the evidence of child labour here, saying I was not the Minister,” Minister Nadir remarked.
He noted that both Ministers of Education, Shaik Baksh and himself served as the relevant Ministers during the life of the project called, “EDUCARE”.
The TIP 2010 report states that the U.S. Department of Labour withdrew 984 children from employment in logging, saw-milling, fishing, hazardous farming, factory work, mining, and freight handling from 2005 to 2009.
Minister Nadir questioned why after four years of being on the ground, EDUCARE failed to mention to either the Education or Labour ministries that they had found instances of child labour.
“I again vehemently deny that there was any project in Guyana that ever removed over 984 children from exploitative child labour or prevented 2000 (plus) from entering such. I am absolutely certain that the project which the Hon. Ambassador is referring to, did not, absolutely did not, achieve this super-human feat,” the Labour Minister maintained.
He stressed that the final report was “falsified and fabricated” by the contractors of the U.S. Department of Labour, who were hired to execute the project.
Minister Nadir pointed out that the Ambassador may be finding it difficult, because of his position, to exercise a modicum of humility and accept that the U.S. administration was duped by the EDUCARE principals.
He further stated that government is confident and adamant that the report is factually inaccurate, intellectually dishonest and those responsible have blatantly defrauded U.S. taxpayers.

The Labour Minister flogged the local operatives at the U.S. embassy, who, he said, have a responsibility to verify the accuracy of reports.
“The Government is not surprised. At least twice in the last three years the Government has had to correct erroneous statements made by managers of this project. In June 2007, there was a perception that 90 percent of Guyana’s children were engaged in the worst forms of child labour.”
In the project’s 2007 mid-term review, nothing was said about removing children from exploitation; instead the review mentioned that the partners were way behind in matching the funds it was contracted to provide and also behind in the delivery of the project.
“Clearly EDUCARE was only after the floating funds in the U.S. Department of Labour. In their own survey of 2008, EDUCARE stated they found very low levels of the worst forms of child labour in Guyana. This contradicts their current TIP statements.”
The minister added that were the EDUCARE report accurate, then in the 65 weeks after the mid-term review, the project would have removed almost 15 children each week from exploitative labour since it ended in 2009.
Guyana in 2005 did agree to the project, not because it was inundated with cases of child labour, but because it was felt that the resources, properly expended, could assist with truancy and dropout challenges.
According to Nadir the government has cooperated with the U.S. on the issue of trafficking in persons and has taken action in the area of legislation and implementation, but the goal post keeps changing.
On the other hand it is ironic that the US government is lecturing other countries on such issues when clearly it does not have its own house in order.
This is what an FBI report had to say on the issue:
“It’s sad but true: here in this country, people are being bought, sold, and smuggled.
They are trapped in lives of misery—often beaten, starved, and forced to work as prostitutes or to take grueling jobs as migrant, domestic, restaurant, or factory workers with little or no pay. We’re working to stop human trafficking—not only because of the personal and psychological toll it takes on society, but also because it facilitates the illegal movement of immigrants across borders and provides a ready source of income for organized crime groups and even terrorists.”
The FBI also pointed out: “In 1999, a teenage girl was taken from a Haitian orphanage and smuggled—using phony documentation—into Miami, where she was forced to work as a domestic servant for up to 15 hours a day, seven days a week. She was never paid, not allowed to go to school, occasionally beaten, and subjected to other inhumane treatment. After suffering for nearly six years, she managed to escape in 2005. This March, justice was finally served when three of her captors were convicted in the case.
This is just one of hundreds of heart-breaking human trafficking cases the FBI investigates each year, in conjunction with local, state, and federal partners such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Our Legal Attachés stationed in embassies around the world also support our investigations that have an international nexus—which many do—by coordinating with our global partners.”
Based on the above it is clear that the US still believes in the policy “might is right” despite the experiences of Vietnam, Korea and currently Iraq and Afghanistan.
But double standards have been the hallmark of American foreign policy and Guyana is one of the many victims of that policy.