Maria Nancy Abad, head of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE-7) Technical Support and Services Division said that there are a number of factories and haciendas in Central Visayas that practice child labor.
Based on a 2011 survey conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority, the age range of child laborers are from five to 17.
Not all working children are however, considered victims.
She said the term child labor applies when the work is physically, mentally, socially, or morally dangerous to them and if it deprives them or interferes with their schooling, or requires them to combine school attendance with heavy work and hinders their holistic development as a person.
In Central Visayas, most child laborers are employed in hazardous jobs or those likely to harm children’s health, safety or morals by its nature or circumstances.
In these kinds of job, children may be directly exposed to obvious work hazards such as sharp tools or poisonous chemicals. Other kinds of hazard, which are most likely not so critical, are those that expose children to long hours of work.
“Children who work at a young age are forced to forego their education and many other youthful activities in order to contribute to the needs of the family,” Labor Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz said in a statement.
There are also the so-called “worst forms of child labor.” Of the more than 4 million children involved in child labor in the country, many of them work in mining, sugar plantations, and even as sex slaves, and as drug sellers.
Industries use and exploit them to lower production cost and increase profits.
They work away from their families with the promise of good life but ended up trapped by being overworked, underpaid, and in threat and violence.
“The root of child labor is directly linked to poverty and lack of decent and productive work,” Abad said.
Abad pointed out that eliminating child labor is a very complicated task.
DOLE, together with local government units (LGUs) and non-government organizations (NGO), focuses on preventing and minimizing the cases of child labor rather than terminating child labor.
One way to intensify DOLE’s Child Labor Prevention and Elimination Program is to list child laborers and their families and submit the list to the Department of Social Welfare and
Development (DSWD) Regional Office to include these families as beneficiaries of their program.
However, Abad revealed that not all child laborers are included in the list as they avoid people from DOLE for fear of getting rounded up. Also, employers and business owners will not admit that they are employing minors to avoid punishment.
Abad added that parents themselves push their children to work due to poverty and lack of education.
Republic Act 9231 or the Act Providing for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor and Affording Stronger Protection for the Working Child stated that government should protect and remove children from the worst forms of child labor. / Irish Maika R. Lam and DM Lorena V. Narciso, Xavier University and Silliman University Interns Part 2