A PEOPLE’S Progressive Party/ Civic administration- commissioned survey back in 2011 found that children and young workers in Guyana are involved in the worst forms of child labour here, including prostitution, snippets of the study released by the government on Tuesday have revealed. The PPP had “ducked” the survey findings for five years despite pressure from the international community. However, the new government through the Ministry of Social Protection on Tuesday released the findings of the study titled “National Child Labour Rapid Assessment Survey.”
The survey was conducted in Georgetown, New Amsterdam, Linden, Corriverton, Black Bush Polder, Number 58 Village, Charity, Kwakwani, and Ituni among three categories of children, 15 years and younger (as young as five years old), 15 to 16 and 16 to 18. Some 532 children and young workers were involved in the survey, which was done during the period April 4 to 15, 2011.

According to the ministry, the enumerators spent one week focusing on child labourers who were involved in daylight and night activities. The night visits were done at hotels, nightspots and places where child-labour activities were deemed prevalent. Many of the youths canvassed were involved in selling and agriculture in all three categories, while hidden evidence of prostitution was found in all of the age ranges. “Also troubling was the fact that a small percentage of the children and working youths sustained illnesses and injuries while working. These occurred while the children and young workers were involved in mainly weeding, begging or carrying out sexual activities.

Also found were many children and young workers involved in carrying heavy loads and operating machinery. Some were also exposed to all weather conditions, chemicals, pesticides, glues, dust, fumes and gases at their places of work,” the report stated.
Most of the homes of the children and working youths were headed by single females who had more than one dependant and most times more than one working child. The guardians/parents reported that the main reason for the children and young individuals working was to help support their families.

Sixty-seven per cent of the children in the 15 years and younger categories were males with 40% of this age group not being in school and 36% of them being employed on a full-time basis. One primary level child in this group had never attended school. In the second category, 15 to 16 years, 77% of the child labourers were males, with 49% of them not being in school. While most of the children in both categories (19% and 23% respectively) were involved in rice- farming, 8% of them in both groups were involved in prostitution and strip- dancing. Interestingly, among the older working individuals (16 to 18 years) 1% was involved in sex work with the majority (40%) being involved in retailing. During the 12 months prior to the survey, 12% of the working children and young workers sustained illnesses and 42% said the injuries were work- related. Of that number, 49% of them had to stop attending school to recuperate.
The younger children, according to the survey, were paid $6,000 a week and worked mainly below 32 hours per week while the older children (16 to 18) worked for $8,000 a week but for longer hours. It should be noted that not all of the children in the younger age group were paid.
Urgent steps
Meanwhile, the new government said that while the findings of the survey are troubling to say the least, the Ministry of Social Protection will take urgent steps to address this problem, “since we [are] aware of the debilitating effects of child labour. Our nation’s children and youths are our future and they should be provided with the best possible opportunities to ensure they achieve their full potential.”
According to the ministry, planned steps to be taken to address this problem include, but are not limited to, creating a unit that focuses specifically on the issue of child labour which will be expected to create strategies to address this phenomenon, including the poverty factor; enforcement of the requisite laws that cover child labour; remove working children off the streets and ensure they are in school; and provide more funding to facilitate labour inspections
The ministry said it should be noted that the recent United States Department of Labour (DOL) child labour report found that Guyana’s children are engaged in child labour in agriculture and in the worst forms of child labour — commercial sexual exploitation. That report had bemoaned the fact that the findings of the 2011 survey were still to be released. The Guyana National Child Labour Rapid Assessment was conducted through the Statistical Unit of the ministry with funding through the ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) from its Tackling Child Labour through Education (TACKLE). While the report was completed in 2011, several objections from the past PPP/C administration resulted in the findings not being released.
The report underwent six reviews. The government will also take steps to release, through the Bureau of Statistics, the findings of the Guyana Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) done in 2001 and 2006 with sponsorship from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) .