“Empty belly life
Rotten smelly life
Full of sorrow life
No tomorrow life…”
– Excerpt from the lyrics of “It’s the Hard Knock Life”, the theme song of the 1977 musical Annie
On Monday, June 12, 13-year-old Rovin Mark Williams of Onderneeming, Essequibo Coast died in what can perhaps be termed an industrial incident, except for the fact that his employment was illegal. The teen school dropout was in the tray of his employer’s Canter truck at Adventure, Essequibo Coast when he fell and was crushed as it reversed out of his employer’s yard. According to reports, the so-far unnamed businessman had hired the minor to pick mangoes. No reference was given as to the time or terms of employment, but the just-turned teenager was clearly working on a school day and was identified as a dropout.
As is usual with vehicular incidents, the police immediately became involved. It was earlier reported that the businessman/driver had been taken into custody, which is the standard operating procedure in incidents of this sort. However, Region Two Police Commander Khemraj Shivbaran has since revealed that the businessman/driver, who reportedly suffers from hypertension among other things, had been hospitalised and the investigation would be concluded once he was released.
It would appear, from Mr Shivbaran’s statement, that the police’s investigation is limited to the child’s death when in fact his very presence on the businessman’s truck — in the tray, which is a violation of insurance — should also be examined. It is within the ambit of the police to probe child labour and enforce the law, though this is rarely if ever done, save and except in the area of human trafficking.
In Guyana, education is compulsory for children aged five to 15 years old. According to labour laws, no one under the age of 15 can be employed; the exception being if the child is helping out in the family business. In such instances, the employment as it were, would be before and after school hours and during the holiday periods. This clearly was not the case here.
When exactly Rovin Williams stopped attending school is not known. However, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, the mango harvesting seasons are mid-October to January and May to June, so as a mango picker he might have been working for at least a month – if indeed this was his first job. It is worth noting that more likely than not, this child was climbing mango trees without any safety gear.
Several questions arise here. Did his disappearance from the schoolroom raise any red flags? Was his absence even noted? Did teachers make checks or report his nonattendance to welfare officers? It would appear that no attempts were made to curb Rovin Williams’ truancy. He thus became just another child to fall through the cracks.
Poverty is likely the chief factor that drove this child to stop attending school. There is no recent data, but the escalation in the cost of living over the past year has placed already poor families in dire straits. There might also have been limited access to schooling and a quality of education that did not take account of his personal and learning constraints. These are things that might also have made Rovin Williams vulnerable to exploitation, leading to his hard-knock life.
In its March 2022 response to the Special Rapporteur with regard to Sustainable Development Goal target 8.7 dealing with child labour, the government had referenced the 2019-20 UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. That survey, it said, revealed a “drastic decline in child labour…” The figure, it was stated, dropped from 18 percent to 6.4 percent. The government also blamed the Covid-19 pandemic for the increase in the numbers of children seen doing domestic work, street vending, washing cars, working as minibus conductors, and begging. However, it would not be unfair to say that the true scope of child labour in Guyana is not fully known. The labour inspectorate is not adequately funded to perform its tasks. These would include but are not limited to random inspections, particularly in interior locations that would allow for a real measurement of child labour, forced labour, and health and safety practices.
Spot inspections at businesses and farms along the Essequibo Coast might have prevented the loss of Rovin Williams’s life. In addition, there must have been adults, apart from his employer, who noticed the diminutive child hard at work but paid no attention, since no reports were apparently made to the Ministry of Labour or the police. One cannot help but wonder at this stage, how many more Rovin Williamses there are working under the radar.
There are those who will argue that Rovin Williams’s job possibly allowed him to make a contribution to his family. The counter to this is that no responsible businessman would employ anyone under 15 – to do so is to exploit; and it is against the law. A case ought to have been made for welfare assistance for this child and his family. As stated before, the police should really be conducting two investigations that should ultimately lead to charges – one is already cut and dried.
