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COMMITTEE ON RIGHTS OF CHILD REVIEWS INITIAL REPORT OF GUYANA
14 January 2004
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14 January 2004
The Committee on the Rights of the Child today considered the initial report of Guyana on how that country was giving effect to the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Introducing the report, Bibi Safora Shadick, Guyana’s Minister in the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security, said the Government was resolved to ensure that the rights of the child would continue to be the guiding principle on which all activities relating to the care, protection and welfare of children were based.
Ms. Shadick said there was ongoing concern about the many difficulties and challenges faced by the indigenous Amerindian children, who, because of their remote location, often did not benefit from the same facilities as their peers on the coastland. There were, however, systems in place that attempted to compensate for those situations, for instance, scholarships to secondary and vocational schools in the city, she added.
In preliminary concluding remarks, Ghalia Mohd Bin Hamad Al-Thani, the Committee Expert who acted as country rapporteur to the report of Guyana, said the concluding observations that the Committee would issue would reflect what had been discussed today. The economic difficulties of the country and the geographical inaccessibility of some of the regions would be taken into consideration while drafting the conclusions.
The Committee will release its formal, written concluding observations and recommendations towards the end of its three-week session on 31 January.
Also representing Guyana were Yvonne Stephenson, Information Resources Manager; and Mike Hamid, Assistant Project Offices (Health).
Guyana is among the 192 States parties to the Convention and as such it is obligated to present periodic reports to the Committee on its efforts to implement the provisions of the treaty.
When the Committee reconvenes at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 14 January, it will take up the second periodic report of Armenia (CRC/C/93/Add.6).
Report of Guyana
The initial report of Guyana (CRC/C/8/Add.47) provides an overview of the situation in the country concerning the implementation of the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In keeping with the National Plan of Action for the development of children, a number of activities have been initiated in the areas of health and education.
The report says that one of the biggest challenges currently facing Guyana in the protection of children is HIV/AIDS and its increasing prevalence. Death of parents from this virus is resulting in more orphans.
While the Government has embraced the Convention and is committed to its full implementation, it recognizes that more has to be done in order to achieve that goal. This is seen as an ongoing challenge that has been accepted by the Government in its determination to protect the rights of children and to ensure their development.
Further, the report notes that despite its enormous natural resources, fertile lands, mineral deposits, forestry resources and favourable climactic conditions, Guyana for the last two decades has remained one of the poorest countries in the Caribbean. Guyana continues to be burdened by its weighty external debt and debt-servicing costs, which account for a high portion of its budget, and this has severely restricted its ability to deal adequately with the problem of poverty in the society. Women and children continue to make up a significant part of the vulnerable population.
Presentation of Report
BIBI SAFORA SHADICK, Minister in the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security of Guyana, reassured the Committee of her Government’s resolve to ensure that the rights of the child would continue to be the guiding principle on which all activities relating to the care, protection and welfare of children were based. While the report recorded an appreciable degree of progress in the Government’s effort to respond to the requirements of the Convention, it was fully aware of the number of constraints and challenges which were to be faced in pursuit of its goals.
The Government had always considered its people as being its most valued resource and children had historically occupied a special position, the Minister said. Their well-being had been, and would continue to be, of major concern to the Government.
Ms. Shadick said that in the area of juvenile justice, while her country had not yet fully met the international standards, it continued to pursue this goal. With regard to corporal punishment, which was a much-discussed issue, she said that it was administered in schools but only in extreme cases. When applied, it was carried out under controlled circumstances, in accordance with the Education Act. That situation would be reviewed as the requirements of the Convention continued to be addressed. Corporal punishment in the home, when considered to be extreme and resulted in harm to the child, might be deemed as child abuse and was subject to remedies under the criminal law.
There was ongoing concern about the many difficulties and challenges faced by the indigenous Amerindian children, who, because of their remote location, often did not benefit from the same facilities as their peers on the coastland, Ms. Shadick said. There were, however, systems in place that attempted to compensate for those situations, for instance, scholarships to secondary and vocational schools in the city.
Ms. Shadick said that in its thrust towards securing the protection and development of its children, the Government had been ever mindful of the wider social environment occasionally beset by political instability and other problems which impinged on the lives of children. Special consideration had therefore been given to poverty alleviation measures, housing, safe water, and health and nutrition programmes, all of which had been formulated and were being delivered within the context of the constraints which the country faced.
A devastating development to be noted was the issue of the HIV/AIDS pandemic which had beset the country, the Minister said. A continuous rise in the epidemic had been reported and it was affecting both children and the economy. The estimated prevalence of the infection among the general population was reported to be 2.5 to 5.5 per cent, but given the size of Guyana’s population, that was a significant figure. (In 2000, the population of Guyana was estimated at 800,000).
Concluding, the Minister said that notwithstanding the challenging social environment, the Government had been steadfast in its efforts to pursue its goal of improving the quality of life of its children, with continued support from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Discussion
GHALIA MOHD BIN HAMID AL-THANI, the Committee Expert who served as country rapporteur to the report of Guyana, said that the State party had not yet ratified either of the two Optional Protocols to the Convention or The Hague conventions relating to the rights of the child. Although the report was submitted after a nine-year delay, it dealt with many of the problems frankly. She wanted to know how the report had been prepared, and if non-governmental organizations and children themselves had been involved in its preparation.
Ms. Al-Thani asked the delegation how the provisions of the Convention were disseminated. Was it translated into various vernaculars, and were training sessions and seminars provided? She asked if appropriate measures had been taken in the field of data collection on children, which was lacking in the report.
Another Expert asked about the roles of the various institutions dealing with children and if their work was overlapping. She also asked about the functions of the forthcoming constitutional commission on the rights of the child. Had the Government evaluated the achievements made following the implementation of the five-year national plan of action for children? What measures had been taken to harmonize the provisions of the Convention and children’s bills?
An Expert said that the State party did not have a general rule on attainment of majority age. The end of compulsory schooling was fixed at 15 but children under 14 were employed. The age for sexual consent for girls was maintained at 13 years; what would happen if such an act took place with a girl under 13?
Turning to indigenous children, another Expert asked if Amerindians and other indigenous children were discriminated against in terms of access to health services, education and other basic needs.
Referring to the burden of the external debt of the State party, an Expert asked if the Government had, within its national plan of action, made attempts to reform its budget structure in order to guarantee adequate allocation to health and education.
In Guyana, 88 per cent of Amerindian children were living in poverty, another Expert said. Because of the increased poverty situation in the rural areas, Amerindian girls and children moved to urban areas where they worked as domestic labourers, bartenders and even as prostitutes.
An Expert said that Guyana’s rule of law had been weakened because of the prevailing problems the country was facing. The administration of justice was also on the verge of being dysfunctional, resulting in negative consequences on the juvenile justice system. The delegation was asked to provide further information on those issues.
Responding, the delegation said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in consultation with other ministries, was actually preparing the ground for the ratification of a number of treaties. The country, since it became independent, had been carrying out legislative reforms on various issues.
The delegation said that the Government’s reporting system was slow. However, it was trying to improve the situation by increasing human and financial resources. While preparing the report under consideration, 93 different groups had participated, including children.
The provisions of the Convention were widely disseminated within the national plan of action for the rights of the child, the delegation said. A number of seminars were also organized on children’s rights, involving teachers and officials dealing with child rights.
The majority of Amerindian children were not registered at birth because of the remote location of their homes, the delegation said. However, new initiatives had been taken to encourage parents to register newborns.
Through the use of computers, the Government was improving its data collection on children, the delegation said.
Guyana’s Amerindians lived in the forest and other remote areas where they depended on hunting and fishing, the delegation said. Many of the areas where they lived were accessible only on foot, and it might take a week to reach some of their villages. About 70 per cent of the Amerindians lived in sometimes-inaccessible hinterland and riverain communities. They were widely dispersed and some settlements could be accessed only at a very high cost of air transport. The Ministry of Amerindian Affairs was working in close collaboration with other ministries to coordinate services provided by the Government to the Amerindians.
There were nurseries and primary schools in all of the Amerindian communities with residential secondary schools within access, the delegation said. Education programmes, funded by UNICEF in two regions, had had a measure of success in those communities.
The Committee Experts continued raising further questions on such issues as the situation of disabled children; the non-distribution of anti-retroviral medication to child victims of HIV/AIDS; the rate of illiteracy among the population; the situation of breastfeeding; the quality of education and the rate of dropouts; the training of teachers and upgrading their capacity to teach; the low school enrolment of boys in some areas; violence among the youth; the situation of street children and placement institutions, among other things.
Responding, the delegation of Guyana said that the HIV/AIDS pandemic was not a problem among the Amerindian indigenous peoples. It was rare to find an Amerindian who was HIV-positive.
Many international organizations, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), were working in the social and health fields in Guyana, the delegation said.
In order to fight malaria, the Government was distributing quinine and nets to people in areas infected with malaria, the delegation said. The Government bought the nets from local people who made them.
In the Amerindian society, a girl who reached puberty was considered to be an adult and could cohabite with a man, the delegation said. However, the age of attainment of majority in Guyana was 18 years.
Reacting, an Expert asked why teenage pregnancy was lower among Amerindians if a girl at the age of puberty could live with a man, to which the delegation said that the problem of teenage pregnancy was manifested within the school system and not in the society as a whole.
Incest was a growing problem within Guyana’s society, the delegation said. Drug abuse and drunkenness in the family were among the main sources for incidents leading to incest. In the event that such cases were reported to the police, the perpetrators were criminally responsible for their acts.
Alluding to the remark made by an Expert on the administration of justice being “dysfunctional” and affecting the juvenile judicial system, the delegation said that the system functioned well contrary to the Expert’s assertion.
The task force created to investigate the increase in the number of street children had concluded that many of them were school dropouts who had been unable to get jobs because they did not have birth certificates, the delegation said. Others gave myriad reasons that prompted them to live on the streets.
Because of cultural reasons, some parents hid their children who were disabled until neighbours or others discovered them by coincidence, the delegation said. The Government had been providing assistance and vocational training to children with disabilities in order to integrate them into the society.
Three baby-friendly hospitals in the country were promoting breastfeeding by encouraging mothers to continue to breastfeed their babies, the delegation said. A four-month maternity leave with pay was granted to working mothers. Leave without pay could also be given to mothers who wished to extend their maternity leave.
Responding to a question on juvenile legislation, the delegation said that juveniles under 17 years were not sent to prison but to rehabilitation centres. Children found guilty of legal offences could also be sent to the “New Opportunity Call” centre for rehabilitation. The Government was envisaging amending the law on juvenile justice.
Referring to a report released by the International Labour Office, an Expert said that the number of incidents of child labour had increased in Guyana despite the country’s ratification of the International Labour Organization Convention No. 182. The delegation said that no child was working at the expense of his or her education. However, in some rice and wheat mills, children could be found working with their families.
Preliminary Concluding Remarks
GHALIA MOHD BIN HAMAD AL-THANI, the Committee Expert who served as country rapporteur to the report of Guyana, said she had been impressed by the effort of the head of the delegation to provide information to the Committee. She said the concluding observations that the Committee would issue would reflect what had been discussed today. The economic difficulties of the country and the geographical inaccessibility of some of the regions would also be taken into consideration while drafting the conclusions.
Ms. Al-Thani said the Committee had taken note of the new monitoring mechanism and the plan to set up a coordinating mechanism by Guyana. The practice of corporal punishment was a concern to the Committee and it would like to see action taken to deal with the issue, including a change in public attitude. Another concern was that children with disabilities were excluded and marginalized from the society without having access to health services and education. The Committee would also like to see that concrete action was taken to address the problem of HIV/AIDS. The Committee’s concern about the situation of Amerindians would also be reflected in the final conclusions.
Concluding Remark by Delegation
BIBI SAFORA SHADICK, Minister in the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security, thanked the members of the Committee for their interest in her country’s children. She noted that legislation came faster than practice. Attitudes did not change rapidly and some things might take more than a generation for a complete change. Economic difficulties were another factor hampering people from ensuring all rights to children.
* *** *
The Committee on the Rights of the Child today considered the initial report of Guyana on how that country was giving effect to the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Introducing the report, Bibi Safora Shadick, Guyana’s Minister in the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security, said the Government was resolved to ensure that the rights of the child would continue to be the guiding principle on which all activities relating to the care, protection and welfare of children were based.
Ms. Shadick said there was ongoing concern about the many difficulties and challenges faced by the indigenous Amerindian children, who, because of their remote location, often did not benefit from the same facilities as their peers on the coastland. There were, however, systems in place that attempted to compensate for those situations, for instance, scholarships to secondary and vocational schools in the city, she added.
In preliminary concluding remarks, Ghalia Mohd Bin Hamad Al-Thani, the Committee Expert who acted as country rapporteur to the report of Guyana, said the concluding observations that the Committee would issue would reflect what had been discussed today. The economic difficulties of the country and the geographical inaccessibility of some of the regions would be taken into consideration while drafting the conclusions.
The Committee will release its formal, written concluding observations and recommendations towards the end of its three-week session on 31 January.
Also representing Guyana were Yvonne Stephenson, Information Resources Manager; and Mike Hamid, Assistant Project Offices (Health).
Guyana is among the 192 States parties to the Convention and as such it is obligated to present periodic reports to the Committee on its efforts to implement the provisions of the treaty.
When the Committee reconvenes at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 14 January, it will take up the second periodic report of Armenia (CRC/C/93/Add.6).
Report of Guyana
The initial report of Guyana (CRC/C/8/Add.47) provides an overview of the situation in the country concerning the implementation of the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In keeping with the National Plan of Action for the development of children, a number of activities have been initiated in the areas of health and education.
The report says that one of the biggest challenges currently facing Guyana in the protection of children is HIV/AIDS and its increasing prevalence. Death of parents from this virus is resulting in more orphans.
While the Government has embraced the Convention and is committed to its full implementation, it recognizes that more has to be done in order to achieve that goal. This is seen as an ongoing challenge that has been accepted by the Government in its determination to protect the rights of children and to ensure their development.
Further, the report notes that despite its enormous natural resources, fertile lands, mineral deposits, forestry resources and favourable climactic conditions, Guyana for the last two decades has remained one of the poorest countries in the Caribbean. Guyana continues to be burdened by its weighty external debt and debt-servicing costs, which account for a high portion of its budget, and this has severely restricted its ability to deal adequately with the problem of poverty in the society. Women and children continue to make up a significant part of the vulnerable population.
Presentation of Report
BIBI SAFORA SHADICK, Minister in the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security of Guyana, reassured the Committee of her Government’s resolve to ensure that the rights of the child would continue to be the guiding principle on which all activities relating to the care, protection and welfare of children were based. While the report recorded an appreciable degree of progress in the Government’s effort to respond to the requirements of the Convention, it was fully aware of the number of constraints and challenges which were to be faced in pursuit of its goals.
The Government had always considered its people as being its most valued resource and children had historically occupied a special position, the Minister said. Their well-being had been, and would continue to be, of major concern to the Government.
Ms. Shadick said that in the area of juvenile justice, while her country had not yet fully met the international standards, it continued to pursue this goal. With regard to corporal punishment, which was a much-discussed issue, she said that it was administered in schools but only in extreme cases. When applied, it was carried out under controlled circumstances, in accordance with the Education Act. That situation would be reviewed as the requirements of the Convention continued to be addressed. Corporal punishment in the home, when considered to be extreme and resulted in harm to the child, might be deemed as child abuse and was subject to remedies under the criminal law.
There was ongoing concern about the many difficulties and challenges faced by the indigenous Amerindian children, who, because of their remote location, often did not benefit from the same facilities as their peers on the coastland, Ms. Shadick said. There were, however, systems in place that attempted to compensate for those situations, for instance, scholarships to secondary and vocational schools in the city.
Ms. Shadick said that in its thrust towards securing the protection and development of its children, the Government had been ever mindful of the wider social environment occasionally beset by political instability and other problems which impinged on the lives of children. Special consideration had therefore been given to poverty alleviation measures, housing, safe water, and health and nutrition programmes, all of which had been formulated and were being delivered within the context of the constraints which the country faced.
A devastating development to be noted was the issue of the HIV/AIDS pandemic which had beset the country, the Minister said. A continuous rise in the epidemic had been reported and it was affecting both children and the economy. The estimated prevalence of the infection among the general population was reported to be 2.5 to 5.5 per cent, but given the size of Guyana’s population, that was a significant figure. (In 2000, the population of Guyana was estimated at 800,000).
Concluding, the Minister said that notwithstanding the challenging social environment, the Government had been steadfast in its efforts to pursue its goal of improving the quality of life of its children, with continued support from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Discussion
GHALIA MOHD BIN HAMID AL-THANI, the Committee Expert who served as country rapporteur to the report of Guyana, said that the State party had not yet ratified either of the two Optional Protocols to the Convention or The Hague conventions relating to the rights of the child. Although the report was submitted after a nine-year delay, it dealt with many of the problems frankly. She wanted to know how the report had been prepared, and if non-governmental organizations and children themselves had been involved in its preparation.
Ms. Al-Thani asked the delegation how the provisions of the Convention were disseminated. Was it translated into various vernaculars, and were training sessions and seminars provided? She asked if appropriate measures had been taken in the field of data collection on children, which was lacking in the report.
Another Expert asked about the roles of the various institutions dealing with children and if their work was overlapping. She also asked about the functions of the forthcoming constitutional commission on the rights of the child. Had the Government evaluated the achievements made following the implementation of the five-year national plan of action for children? What measures had been taken to harmonize the provisions of the Convention and children’s bills?
An Expert said that the State party did not have a general rule on attainment of majority age. The end of compulsory schooling was fixed at 15 but children under 14 were employed. The age for sexual consent for girls was maintained at 13 years; what would happen if such an act took place with a girl under 13?
Turning to indigenous children, another Expert asked if Amerindians and other indigenous children were discriminated against in terms of access to health services, education and other basic needs.
Referring to the burden of the external debt of the State party, an Expert asked if the Government had, within its national plan of action, made attempts to reform its budget structure in order to guarantee adequate allocation to health and education.
In Guyana, 88 per cent of Amerindian children were living in poverty, another Expert said. Because of the increased poverty situation in the rural areas, Amerindian girls and children moved to urban areas where they worked as domestic labourers, bartenders and even as prostitutes.
An Expert said that Guyana’s rule of law had been weakened because of the prevailing problems the country was facing. The administration of justice was also on the verge of being dysfunctional, resulting in negative consequences on the juvenile justice system. The delegation was asked to provide further information on those issues.
Responding, the delegation said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in consultation with other ministries, was actually preparing the ground for the ratification of a number of treaties. The country, since it became independent, had been carrying out legislative reforms on various issues.
The delegation said that the Government’s reporting system was slow. However, it was trying to improve the situation by increasing human and financial resources. While preparing the report under consideration, 93 different groups had participated, including children.
The provisions of the Convention were widely disseminated within the national plan of action for the rights of the child, the delegation said. A number of seminars were also organized on children’s rights, involving teachers and officials dealing with child rights.
The majority of Amerindian children were not registered at birth because of the remote location of their homes, the delegation said. However, new initiatives had been taken to encourage parents to register newborns.
Through the use of computers, the Government was improving its data collection on children, the delegation said.
Guyana’s Amerindians lived in the forest and other remote areas where they depended on hunting and fishing, the delegation said. Many of the areas where they lived were accessible only on foot, and it might take a week to reach some of their villages. About 70 per cent of the Amerindians lived in sometimes-inaccessible hinterland and riverain communities. They were widely dispersed and some settlements could be accessed only at a very high cost of air transport. The Ministry of Amerindian Affairs was working in close collaboration with other ministries to coordinate services provided by the Government to the Amerindians.
There were nurseries and primary schools in all of the Amerindian communities with residential secondary schools within access, the delegation said. Education programmes, funded by UNICEF in two regions, had had a measure of success in those communities.
The Committee Experts continued raising further questions on such issues as the situation of disabled children; the non-distribution of anti-retroviral medication to child victims of HIV/AIDS; the rate of illiteracy among the population; the situation of breastfeeding; the quality of education and the rate of dropouts; the training of teachers and upgrading their capacity to teach; the low school enrolment of boys in some areas; violence among the youth; the situation of street children and placement institutions, among other things.
Responding, the delegation of Guyana said that the HIV/AIDS pandemic was not a problem among the Amerindian indigenous peoples. It was rare to find an Amerindian who was HIV-positive.
Many international organizations, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), were working in the social and health fields in Guyana, the delegation said.
In order to fight malaria, the Government was distributing quinine and nets to people in areas infected with malaria, the delegation said. The Government bought the nets from local people who made them.
In the Amerindian society, a girl who reached puberty was considered to be an adult and could cohabite with a man, the delegation said. However, the age of attainment of majority in Guyana was 18 years.
Reacting, an Expert asked why teenage pregnancy was lower among Amerindians if a girl at the age of puberty could live with a man, to which the delegation said that the problem of teenage pregnancy was manifested within the school system and not in the society as a whole.
Incest was a growing problem within Guyana’s society, the delegation said. Drug abuse and drunkenness in the family were among the main sources for incidents leading to incest. In the event that such cases were reported to the police, the perpetrators were criminally responsible for their acts.
Alluding to the remark made by an Expert on the administration of justice being “dysfunctional” and affecting the juvenile judicial system, the delegation said that the system functioned well contrary to the Expert’s assertion.
The task force created to investigate the increase in the number of street children had concluded that many of them were school dropouts who had been unable to get jobs because they did not have birth certificates, the delegation said. Others gave myriad reasons that prompted them to live on the streets.
Because of cultural reasons, some parents hid their children who were disabled until neighbours or others discovered them by coincidence, the delegation said. The Government had been providing assistance and vocational training to children with disabilities in order to integrate them into the society.
Three baby-friendly hospitals in the country were promoting breastfeeding by encouraging mothers to continue to breastfeed their babies, the delegation said. A four-month maternity leave with pay was granted to working mothers. Leave without pay could also be given to mothers who wished to extend their maternity leave.
Responding to a question on juvenile legislation, the delegation said that juveniles under 17 years were not sent to prison but to rehabilitation centres. Children found guilty of legal offences could also be sent to the “New Opportunity Call” centre for rehabilitation. The Government was envisaging amending the law on juvenile justice.
Referring to a report released by the International Labour Office, an Expert said that the number of incidents of child labour had increased in Guyana despite the country’s ratification of the International Labour Organization Convention No. 182. The delegation said that no child was working at the expense of his or her education. However, in some rice and wheat mills, children could be found working with their families.
Preliminary Concluding Remarks
GHALIA MOHD BIN HAMAD AL-THANI, the Committee Expert who served as country rapporteur to the report of Guyana, said she had been impressed by the effort of the head of the delegation to provide information to the Committee. She said the concluding observations that the Committee would issue would reflect what had been discussed today. The economic difficulties of the country and the geographical inaccessibility of some of the regions would also be taken into consideration while drafting the conclusions.
Ms. Al-Thani said the Committee had taken note of the new monitoring mechanism and the plan to set up a coordinating mechanism by Guyana. The practice of corporal punishment was a concern to the Committee and it would like to see action taken to deal with the issue, including a change in public attitude. Another concern was that children with disabilities were excluded and marginalized from the society without having access to health services and education. The Committee would also like to see that concrete action was taken to address the problem of HIV/AIDS. The Committee’s concern about the situation of Amerindians would also be reflected in the final conclusions.
Concluding Remark by Delegation
BIBI SAFORA SHADICK, Minister in the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security, thanked the members of the Committee for their interest in her country’s children. She noted that legislation came faster than practice. Attitudes did not change rapidly and some things might take more than a generation for a complete change. Economic difficulties were another factor hampering people from ensuring all rights to children.
* *** *
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