Child labour Social Justice for All. End Child Labour

Child labour is prevalent worldwide, but especially in Third-World countries and countries at war. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) and UNICEF inform that child labour has risen to 160 million worldwide – and counting.
In information coming out of Geneva in ILO News in 2021, it stated the two organisations warn that nine million additional children were at risk as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most likely, that is a conservative figure. This figure is an estimated increase of 8.4 million children in the last four years.
The report points to a significant rise in the number of children – aged 5 to 11 years in child labour, who now account for just over half of the total global figure. The number of children aged 5 to 17 years in hazardous work – defined as work that is likely to harm their health, safety, or morals – has risen by 6.5 million to 79 million since 2016. The ILO-UNICEF report indicates that 8.2 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 are engaged in child labour in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Here in Guyana, the Guyana Government has passed legislation and enacted laws that mandate severe penalties for infringements that could cause harm to children while yet recognising that the Guyanese culture allows children to be involved in family income-generation activities, as well as children’s efforts to engage in odd jobs in their spare time, once such activities do not affect their education and/or jeopardise them or their health in any way,
Human Services and Social Security Minister, Dr Vindhya Persaud on Friday last called on stakeholders to collaborate to end child labour in Guyana.
Labour Minister Joseph Hamilton in his message for 2023 warned employers to exercise their due diligence to discourage the practice.
To quote the Minister: “I wish to remind employers that they have a responsibility to prevent and eliminate this scourge in society and to ensure that the necessary due diligence in their business processes and supply chains is done to discourage the involvement of child labour in the business ecosystem…”
The appeal was made during World Day Against Child Labour, which this year is themed, “Social Justice for All. End Child Labour!” Guyana proposes to end child labour by 2025, especially in rural communities where this matter is prevalent. According to Minister Hamilton as a country, we cannot allow the fight against child labour to regress.
The Government thinks it is imperative to prioritise ending child labour and to accelerate the approaches hitherto undertaken to end this scourge. To enable this, the Administration is seeking the involvement of private and public organisations, trade unions, and civil society stakeholders.
Hamilton iterated: “Here in Guyana, we have implemented numerous measures to mitigate the risk factors that provide for the enhanced welfare of our children through the Because We Care Cash Grant, Cash Grant for Each Child With Disability, and the National School Feeding programmes. Notably, together with our inclusive and well-performing education system, we have a good social protection system which covers many social benefits, including foster care and adoption. and public assistance benefits.”
In her remarks during last year’s observation, Minister Persaud had explained the anomalies differentiating acceptable childhood activity and child labour, as defined by UNICEF protocols; she said, inter alia, “… it is good to have children involved in chores at home. It is good to give them a sense of discipline and responsibility, but from the time it moves to force… exploiting them and putting them in the labour force at a tender age when money is involved … and the deviation becomes a part of the equation, that is when it becomes wrong… It is a crime. It leads to poverty, it leads to deprivation of education, it leads to societal exclusion, it leads to psychological trauma and harm, and it can lead to the worst forms of abuse of children.”
Good intentions cannot eradicate societal scourges, but holistic approaches by global multi-stakeholder endeavours may positively impact the status quo to levels where individual governments can effectively manage their internal affairs.