As we told you last night, owner of the Maya King farm in south Stann Creek, Johnny Zabaneh is in the crosshairs of the immigration, police and the anti trafficking in persons office, known as ATIPS.
That's after 39 persons - all Hondurans and Guatemalans - including 12 minors were intercepted on Saturday night on the Southern Highway in a Maya King Bus. The police and the immigration department took them into custody for processing and found that number of the minors were not with their parents, and claimed that they were working at the farm, picking oranges and getting paid $1.50 per sack.
The adults were release and 10 of the minors were taken in by the ATIPS office so that they could be re-united with their parents.
Following this intercept, reports say, there was a raid at the Maya King farm where 8 minors were found.
So is Johnny Zabaneh exploiting child labour to pick oranges on his farm? We called him today to get his side of the story:
Voice of: John Zabaneh, Mayan King Farm Owner
"I really don't know of anybody and don't think there is anybody in the country who is involved in child labor, hiring children intentionally. There might be mistakes like with wrong birth paper or something like that and little mistakes. For instance, I maybe have 100 people and you find 4, 5, 6 cases of children who are out in the field working and mostly I would say with their parents; mother, father or their older brother or something like that. You can't take it at that is the case hiring child labor. Depends who and what they are looking on. I don't think there is anybody that are doing any kind of human trafficking like what they are trying to claim or digging for or child labor as a habitual practice or something like that - none at all. That does not exist."
Jules Vasquez
"But Mr. Zabaneh, the allegation is that it is happening and it is happening on your farm. You have here, I have seen the reports with the young people who they ATIPS office interviewed and for example, a 14 year-old is saying that he entered the country illegally on the 17th March, 2022 and that he is working at the citrus farm, harvesting oranges and is being paid $1.50 per sack and that he was told he is to work from Monday - Saturday and rest on Sundays. He has no parents with him in Belize."
Voice of: John Zabaneh, Mayan King Farm Owner
"Well, if they say 14 year-old or whatever, to held these people - but I think all of them has been release to their parents by now, or between now and tomorrow. The parents come to claim them and as I said, yes, if they say they work, its $1.50 a bag, but for sure they are working for somebody or under somebody - somebody took them out there. As I said a few might slip through the cracks, so to speak, but you can't put that, that that is the norm or that is intentional or whatever."
Jules Vasquez
"What they are saying, the ATIPS people are saying that 4 of the minors and these are persons age 14-16, 17 years old, say they have been working fulltime, yet were unable to say who hired them except that the captain consented to them working at the farm and ATIPS says there are indications of this of labor exploitation and the persons in question, the minors did not have any family here in Belize and are basically unaccompanied minors working as harvesters at the Maya King Citrus Company."
Voice of: John Zabaneh, Mayan King Farm Owner
"That is not true, because all of them were claimed. Now, 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 mountain out of a mole hill. I am telling 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."
Yesterday, in a speech clearly intended to be heard in Washington - but delivered at Spanish Lookout, Minister of Immigration Eamon Courtenay said "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, under aged 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." End quote.
Pretty words for Washington but in the citrus belt, Zabaneh says they mean little because labour is scarce and hard to hold because after COVID, economic desperation is forcing much of the Central American labour north-wards.
He says because of this labour shortage - citrus is having a dire year:
Voice of: John Zabaneh, Mayan King Farm Owner
"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 trailers 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."
Zabaneh says workers are now afraid to work at his farm due to immigration raids.
