By Robert Andre Emmanuel
Selling fruits and vegetables, washing cars, working after school in hotels and restaurants, fishing, working in bakeries as sweepers, and working at construction sites, bringing materials for concrete mixing.
These are some of the activities that children in Antigua and Barbuda undergo as cited in a February 2024 rapid assessment report.
This report, reviewed by Observer media, comes as yesterday saw the commemoration of World Day Against Child Labour which was launched in 2002 as a reminder that children worldwide continue to be exploited and forced to work—much to the expense of their own childhood and education.
Acting Labour Commissioner, Pascal Kentish, said on Observer AM that although there is low presence of child labour in Antigua and Barbuda, the necessity of eliminating child labour remains a priority in the country.
“With Latin America and the Caribbean joining efforts together, we were able to reduce child labour by 50 percent but still there are 8 million children in child labour in the Latin America and the Caribbean region.
“Child labour harms and children’s mental, physical, social and moral capacity, and so we don’t want children to fall into the cracks and we lose them at such early age and so we are working towards that,” Commissioner Kentish said.
Acting Labour Commissioner revealed that a workshop will be held at the Trade Winds Hotel on June 20 and 21 with the aim of bringing together the stakeholders on the island to develop the country’s accelerated action plan on child labour based on the assessment report.
According to the Rapid Assessment of Child Labour in Antigua and Barbuda, nearly 87 percent reported that child labour was ‘not a problem’ in the country compared to the 13 percent who expressed that some form of child labour.
In a survey of public officials, 40 percent responded that it was more acceptable for boys to engage in child labour with nearly a quarter of public officials responded that it was more acceptable for boys to be engaged in labour that is hazardous to their health and safety.
The assessment revealed, however, that the country’s regulatory framework does not have specific rules or action programmes dedicated to eliminating the worst forms of child labour—sexual exploitation, slavery, hazardous work that can cause injury or moral corruption and drug production.
The report also noted that construction (36 percent), farming (40 percent) and working in a mechanic shop (22 percent) are some of the likely places to find child labour in the country, according to public officials.
These activities by children often occur as they seek to support their family due to the economic status as noted in the report and by the acting Labour Commissioner.
“Sometimes you see them on Old Parham Road, just by the traffic light, there’s also reports of them at the Golden Grove traffic light, selling guineps, mangoes and things like that.
“If it is not done during school hours, then that is not a problem because if it’s outside of school hours, then you can basically deduce that they probably are attending school,” Acting Commissioner Kentish said.
UNICEF’s standards indicator for child labour state that it would be considered child labour for youth aged 5 to 11 years doing at least one hour of economic work, or 21 hours of unpaid household services per week; youth aged 12 to 14 years doing at least 14 hours of economic work or 21 hours of unpaid household services per week; and youth aged 15 to 17 years completing at least 43 hours of economic work per week.
Kentish said that there was commitment given at a recently held regional meeting on child labour for Antigua and Barbuda to establish a register for child workers within the Labour Department.
“Our core message is that children should not be working, and if children are working, you need to report it to the authorities, to the Labor Department, to the Ministry of Education, to the Ministry of Social Transformation.
“If a child is working, it means that that child is out of school, of a child is working, probably there’s something going on in the home … and so we want to eliminate child labour, we want our children to work only as a part of their studies, skills training and keep children out of the workforce,” he said.
