CHILD Labour Day was observed on June 12, 2011 internationally under the Global theme of: “Children in Hazardous Work. End Child Labour.” I totally agree with these phrases used to sensitise citizens in Guyana and around the globe that children should stay in school and should not be found doing laborious jobs with their parents or for someone else at a cheap wage. Children should not be robbed of a good education along with having “school days” a fun part of life that even old people would sit with their grandchildren and recall some of the good times they had with friends and teachers growing up. I am aware that child labour is the act committed against a child’s well being by forcing the child to indulge in hard and strenuous tasks for their parents or even outsiders for free or at a cheap labour cost.
Some of these back-breaking jobs that kids are compelled to do by adults are: chopping hard dry coconuts to make copra (soap, oil, etc.) in the hot tormenting Guyana sun and pushing these kids to fetch large, heavy loads of coconuts on their back, allowing boys to become high school drop outs and indulge in rice field work i.e. planting and harvesting rice at the back dam whereas there are suppose to be in school, working at sea with their father’s or uncles in a big boat to catch fish with big nets in the middle of the deep Atlantic Ocean, and being pushed around the market to fetch heavy rice bags or grocery loads on their heads from the market to the roadside for people at a very cheap cost.
I believe these methods of abuse should be identified and eliminated in order to allow our children to have a safe, healthy and educational life in schools, instead of suffering from arduous work.
All of these hard jobs given to children are done by heartless people who do not look at the side effects on how ill-treating kids can have a negative impact, such as stress on the lives of these children who are supposed to be our leaders of tomorrow.
I was even surprised to learn that there are some business people who use children instead of adults to get their jobs done in their stores because they do not want to pay real employees and cast a few dollars at these kids which are called. “Cheap Labour” and this should really end. According to the Guyana Chronicle, Sunday, June 12 edition it states on page 12, the national theme, “Child Labour can hurt!” “Let’s stay in school.” Background information given in the article to support this statement is that, child labour is defined as children’s work which is of a nature of intensity and is detrimental to their schooling and harmful towards their health and development. The article also states that such children are: Denied their childhood and future, work at a too young age, work for many hours at a low pay, they are separated from their family (orphans), who are deprived of a good education and last but not least and those who work under conditions harmful to their health and towards their physical and mental development. Such child labour can create irreversible damage to the child and is in violation of international law and usually, national legislation.
The minimum age of employment is to be not less than the age of completion of compulsory education, normally not under age 15 and as for the worst forms of child labour is applicable to all persons under age 18, and requires ratifying states to take effective and immediate measures to prohibit and eliminate as a matter of urgency.
Yes I do believe child labour is wrong, the kind that school drop outs indulge in-tough jobs at a low rate of earning but I don’t think it’s wrong if a child is going to school and wants to assist his or her poor parents by finding a part-time job after school or on weekends and still attend school daily at the same time. I am talking about a good job here not a laborious one.
For instance: store job, cashier, washing vehicles, waiter/waitress etc. just for a few hours after school or on weekends to earn a pocket piece to go to school is not a bad idea. Here you are preparing the child for the world of work. Lots of kids overseas start working from the legal age 14 to help out the household as well as themselves by selling paper door to door, shovelling the neighbour’s snow off his drive way, delivering daily bottles of milk, mowing (cutting) the grass of one’s front lawn, washing cars, working store job, factory, bartender etc. to earn a few dollars a day to know what life is really all about, working and living.
Some intellects such as Dr. Cheddi Jagan stated once that he had to do odd jobs overseas to earn money for his dentistry degree, another, Gail Texeira in her article “what a ride” mentioned in her message of proving why she is so successful today “it’s all because of babysitting from age 14 then at 16 working at a filter factory overseas to earn degrees.”
Leaving out the politicians a Professor in Psychology told me he had to work a bartender’s job to earn his degree. All of these intellects here I am addressing worked in their teenage years to be where they are today. So, I don’t see what kind of crime is being committed here?
Guyanese children are being brought up spoilt nowadays-given anything they want that’s why it will be hard for them to face the real world, yet their longing to go overseas where you definitely have to go to work. What puzzles me is how they are willing to work overseas and not locally? In Berbice most parents don’t want their children to work for anyone. It’s a shame that kids growing up in the first world countries are more willing to work than the one’s that don’t have such a good life and have pride and are proud about themselves and are only living in a developing country.
I brought up this issue lately at a chamber meeting and people started shouting out “Child Labour” where there was no reason to because they did not know better and what child labour is all about. I do hope people now can understand truly the message I am trying to convey here and that is that if kids are willing to work at an affordable average wage a suitable part-time job. I believe parents should encourage them in order for these kids to start building their own future.