It’s been almost two years since Guyana became trapped under the curse of a prolonged period of regression on several fronts, with the most hard-hitting being the economic crisis resulting from contractionary policies and austerity measures.
Evidence of this trauma can be found in the decline of the people’s purchasing power, which tells a tale of the overall pauperisation of Guyanese, especially a significant majority living in rural Guyana and depending heavily on the traditional income earning sectors, in particular agriculture.
The people of rural Guyana are suffering, and unlike their compatriots in the city, alternative sources of income and subsistence are fewer, rendering it difficult to minimize the backlash of the devastated rice and sugar industries. Seasonal labourers and farmers alike are struggling. The consequential rise in crime substantiates my belief that the causal effect of poverty on criminality has more merit in Guyanese society than the ludicrous theory advanced by President Granger to the effect that the “mother of all crimes is narcotics”.
But in this degradation of Guyana’s developmental trajectory, we seldom speak of the vulnerability of Guyanese women, who bear the social and financial burdens of society, despite the inequalities and stigmas already associated with their sex; especially rural Guyanese women. Depending on the age, social and civil status of women in rural communities, the impact of the economic stagnation on everyday life and opportunities differs. Subsequently, an 18-year-old CXC graduate from a modest family in which the bread winner is a small-scale rice farmer is now confronted with the suffocating reality of having to find a low-income job somewhere in the region.
Once a possibility when the rice sector was still profitable for hundreds of Essequibian families, attending the University of Guyana or another private institution is now a luxury many parents cannot afford their daughters. But finding even a low-income job on the Essequibo Coast proves to be challenging for young people now more than ever before.
Then there’s the question of young professionals with higher learning degrees who, because of the high unemployment rate and economic decline, look beyond our borders for opportunities. Yet, studies and research have proven that a mother’s education level has a decisive impact on child health and education. The online medical journal produced by The Lancet has, for instance, determined that for every one-year increase in the education of women who are at age to reproduce, there is a decrease of about 9.5% in the national infant mortality rate. The reduction of teenage pregnancies and the increase of schooling for children have also proven to be closely linked to the level of education of mothers.
Just as important is the question of mothers above an average age of 40 living in rural Guyanese communities with basic primary to eventually limited secondary education, without degrees and with practically little prospects of finding a job. These women, often mothers and housewives, generally turn to small-scale investments to help make ends meet. But rearing a few pigs, chickens or ducks hardly feeds a family or pays a child’s tuition fees. This is the plight of the average rural Guyanese mother. This is the woman who, despite being resourceful, is now helpless when confronted by the financial hardships of her family. She is the wife of the now jobless cane-cutter; the wife of the now jobless rice worker; the wife of a struggling cash-crop farmer. She simultaneously looks for innovative means to generate income while bearing the burden of her husband’s struggles whether she consents or not. Either way, she endures and suffers in silence.
Last, but equally important to remember is the case of single mothers challenged by unemployment and limited education, or a combination of several factors of socioeconomic disparity. They can be found throughout the country; but those living in rural Guyana are particularly prone to precariousness, and their children stand to suffer the consequences of poverty more than others.
These are the very real scenarios that depict the daily life of the small woman, whose purse is now lighter, thanks to the APNU/AFC Coalition. This impoverishment will have irreversible consequences for many living in rural communities, and must go down in history as a deliberate orchestration by the Coalition Government, through the promulgation of policies which obliterate the voices of our rural people, of our rural women.
And while somewhere in Essequibo a mother combs her purse to feed her child, Granger squanders millions of tax-dollars on private jets and fruitless overseas trips.
