Guyana’s children continue to be engaged in child labour in agriculture and in the worst forms of child labour in commercial sexual exploitation, according to the United States Department of Labour (DOL), which also said there is no comprehensive policy to combat child labour since the existing social programmes do not fully address the problem.
The damning ‘Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labour’ 2014 report, which was released yesterday, said it was found that children continue to work in hazardous conditions, while the results from a 2011 child labour rapid assessment which was conducted with help from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has not yet been released. The report said that although the former government would have established the Commission on the Rights of the Child and a Ministerial Task Force on Combatting Trafficking in Persons, research has found no evidence of mechanisms to coordinate its efforts to address child labour including its worse forms.
According to the report, 23 per cent of Guyana’s children age 5 to 14 are working; while 94.5 per cent of them are
