Child labor in the Philippines is loosely defined as work that impedes on their right of children aged five to 15 to secure an education, while exposing them to physical and economic abuse – either in terms of low pay, long hours or hazardous work environments.
Based on the tracking census of the National Statistics Office, the number of children who have to earn their living grew by 400,000 from 1995 to 2000, swelling their ranks to four million – or roughly half of the number of our overseas Filipinos workers today.
A third, or about 1.3 million, has completely abandoned their schooling, while another third, or 1.2 million, have been handicapped by absences from class work so much so that they have extreme difficulty trying to catch up with simple learning tasks.
What we can glean from the above figures is the alarming fact that more Filipino parents are choosing to send their children to work rather than secure for them a better future even through the public school system, which is free in the country.
This exploitative environment, in fact, is more prevalent in the rural areas as farming or fishing families opt to harness their children’s energies as extra hands in the farms or out in the sea casting fishing nets or going up to the mountains to hunt for food or collect firewood – rather than send them to school.
Not only are the children of rural households – currently estimated to be three million strong – deprived of an education, they even don’t get paid for the work they do since most of their work is basically to bring in food for the table.
Without saying, many of the parents who have decided to discontinue the education of their children need to be rescued from the desperate lives that they lead. Most of them had not finished their elementary levels, a primary reason for their incapacity to provide better lives for their offspring.
These parents’ lack of appreciation about education could also be the basic reason behind the results of a World Bank study that noted a 60-percent dropout rate in the first and second grade of primary education in the country’s poor areas.
Currently, much of the developmental resources coming from international and country aid are being channeled to providing educational opportunities to rescued child laborers, as well as increasing awareness of the importance of keeping children in school.
This is a gigantic task given the numbers that must be reached. Aside from providing scholarships or partial assistance to help child labor victims to go back to school, special interventions that include health and nutrition components are developed to cater to specific sectors, such as those who work as scavengers.
Some even go as far as encouraging the communities to set up micro-enterprises or small industries like basket-weaving, food processing, pottery, or garments making that would unilaterally address the low level of economic activity in the barrio or barangay.
All these efforts recognize that directly helping disadvantaged children does not often guarantee success. In many cases, "rescued" children who are turned over back to their homes leave to work again in other areas, simply because they see a bleaker future if they stayed home.
Of course, the Philippine government prides itself with being one of the first developing countries to have put in place not just one, but several pieces of legislation that protects children from abusive labor contracts including prostitution and illegal child trafficking.
Enforcement, as with most Philippine laws, however continues to be a big problem especially in rural areas. There are groups that specialize in working in communities where the potential for child labor abuse is highest – for example, in Bulacan where pyrotechnics is produced, in mining and quarrying sites, and in the sugar plantations in the Visayas.
For one, there is a higher incidence of school dropouts among male children in the rural areas since their parents usually rely on them to participate in food gathering or getting jobs more than their female siblings. The girls, therefore, have higher education levels.
The Philippines, unlike other Asian countries, does not discriminate against male and female children. This is reflected by the fact that there is no specific work for the female or male child. Manual work outside the household, however, is usually given to the male children, while housework is often relegated to the female children.
For children who are separated from their families to work, female children are often sent to work as household helpers while the males are assigned to such labor-intensive or hazardous jobs in mines, quarries, sugarcane plantations, or deep-sea fishing expeditions.
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