BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Mar. 31, 2022– Farms in the citrus belt of southern Belize have been bushhogged, and trees are covered with fruit that is already falling, but a dire shortage of field hands is pushing the citrus industry into crisis mode—with picking and bagging of citrus lagging behind (to an unprecedented extent) what would have typically been harvested at this juncture in the season. Native-born residents of the area, however, are reluctant to take on the back-breaking work of picking citrus and filling sacks to be deposited on trailers before finally being towed off to the juice-processing factory or sold on the local market. Each sack, almost completely filled, earns a laborer between $1.00 and $1.50, and one of those bags would be difficult to even lift.
It is against this backdrop in the citrus industry that, on Saturday, March 19, an anti-narcotics sting operation in the south resulted in the interception of 39 undocumented Central Americans who said they were enroute to pick oranges in one of the local orchards down south.
The bus was reportedly stopped near Maya King Farm, where 27 adults and 12 minors were identified. Reports are that 8 of the adults are from Honduras, 1 is from El Salvador, and 18 are Guatemalans. It is common for entire families at times to work on large farms as fieldhands during harvest season, and according to initial reports on the incident, this seems to have been the case—with some of the minors (ranging from 6 to 17 years of age) reportedly being the children of the adults who were on the bus.
According to police, all of the children under age 13 were reportedly accompanying their parents, but those between 14 and 17 years of age were working as unaccompanied minors on the farms.
John Zabaneh, who reportedly owns the bus on which the laborers were found, insisted to 7News that in general the farm owners in the citrus belt do not employ underaged workers, and went on to suggest that it is possible that a few minors “slipped through the cracks.”
“… There are exceptions, like I said, a few slip through the cracks, where they did not come with their mother or father; they came with their older brother or they come with an uncle, and for these people that you mentioned, that is unacceptable. The least they will accept is mother, father and grandmother. They told me that themselves. So they might have come with an uncle or an older brother or an auntie, besides those that come with mother, grandmother, father and things like that. But they are [making a] mountain out of a mole hill. I am telling you that. People who came, a few bring their kids and they are making a big thing out of this. It’s nothing to be alarmed about, honest to God. I would say little things can’t be a hundred percent, but when you see the thing outrageously in high incidents, then. We are talking 4 people,” he said.
He went on to lament the circumstances currently facing the industry. “The fruit is falling to the ground. This will be a disastrous year, nobody to harvest the fruit. It’s so slow. Other years at this time at the year this is the peak of the crop. For instance, I would be doing 5, 6 of these big trailer loads—900 boxes each—I would be doing between 5 and 6 of those for the day. I am scraping one right now per day, and other farms are doing worse, a lot worse,” he said.
A release from the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Unit states, “there are apparent labor violations, to say the least. These children should not be allowed to do labor-intensive work at a farm where heavy equipment such as trucks and tractors operate.”
Initial reports are that, following the detention of the adult laborers by police, a number of calls were made to police by high-ranking government officials, including the Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Jose Mai, who, unconfirmed reports say urged police to release those persons and have them continue on their way, but when interviewed yesterday he said that he called to ensure that the process was being handled properly. (Ten of the minors had been placed in the care of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Unit, which reportedly endeavored to reunite them with their parents.)
“Our calls were made to ensure that we’re doing the right things. Taking into consideration that we’re losing fruits right now. The calls were made for us to do the right thing, do the proper investigation, not to release anybody who was guilty of wrongdoings, but to do proper investigation before we accuse anybody,” Mai said.
As mentioned, the police’s initial investigation revealed that none of the detained persons had any identification documents or local work permits; however, Minister Mai maintained that the laborers couldn’t be accused without evidence.
“Many times, we accuse people without the proper evidence, so our call was to ensure that due diligence is done, and whoever is liable will have to be liable. But if somebody is just being targeted for whatever reasons, that is unfortunate, and we don’t want that to be the case. It’s not the case, and we don’t want that to be the case,” Hon. Mai stated.
He went on to pledge that he would not allow the citrus industry to collapse and indicated that the country will inevitably have to rely on laborers from our Central American neighbors as fieldhands for harvesting the citrus crops, but said that it has to be done the right way, which involves strict adherence to international labor and child rights conventions.
“We have to import labor, but it has to be done the proper way. We cannot have children laboring in the field, and not only in citrus—the sugar cane industry too, because you know that there are conventions against child labor and so on, so we are signatory to these conventions and we must abide by them, not only citrus, banana, sugar up north, but we do have a problem with the availability of labor in the country, right, and it’s a sad thing…” Mai remarked.
He had also stated, when asked whether there would be a decline in the citrus industry in the country, “I hope not, especially under my ministry, under my watch. We inherited an industry which is really in ICU. We invested, right now, we have invested 15 million dollars or we are ready to invest 15 million dollars which is procured from the DFC to rehabilitate farms…. The situation with the 35 persons, I cannot discuss that, because another ministry and department, I don’t want to go down that way, but we are going to solve that problem. That is what our government does, this government solves problems.”
It is to be noted that last week, while delivering an address in Spanish Lookout, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Immigration, Hon. Eamon Courtenay, stated, “The government of Belize believes pure and simple that Belizeans should be offered employment before foreigners. Many migrants are illegally entering Belize seeking temporary employment and being employed before they make their way northwards. We have an increase in the number of child labor, underaged children who should be in school are toiling in fields for a pittance that the government of Belize will not tolerate this much longer. We will fight child labor, we will fight human trafficking, and we will fight for a living wage for all lawful workers.”
He also noted, during a budget debate in the Senate yesterday, “After neglect and negligence, our government is renewing the citrus industry with an investment of 15 million dollars over three years. That money, Madam President, is being made available through the Development Finance Corporation, and we continue to work with the farmers to ensure a lawful supply of migrant workers to reap their fruit.”