Gov’t to reduce number of child laborers by 75%

A 75 percent reduction in the number of child laborers in the country, eight years from now or by the year 2015, is the target of the national government.

Labor and Employment regional director Elias Cayanong said the department has been working with other government agencies, the private sector, and non-government organizations to improve the lives of these children and bring them back to school.

Cayanong said DOLE-7 has been discussing with the Southwestern University in Cebu City and the Oriental Negros State University in Dumaguete City over the possibility of having alternative courses for working children that would allow them to work and go to school at the same time.

The school time period being assessed by the government for the children is between 10 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. or between 6:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.

DOLE-7 had also launched its ‘Angel Tree for Child Laborers” Project, which aims to raise funds for education needs of these working children including school bags, and shoes, among others.

Cayanong said that poverty maybe the main factor that forced children to work, even under hazardous situation, but this must not be made an excuse for parents or employers to allow children into the labor force.

In a forum of the Philippine Information Agency-7 in celebration of the National Children’s Month this October, Cayanong cited seven areas of work that the government prohibits from children because of their being hazardous or risky to their health and lives.

These include agriculture, mining, pyrotechnics, entertainment, deep-sea fishing and domestic work.

Work in agriculture has been the top choice of most children, especially in the sugar industry, where they have been seen toiling in plantations, harvesting crops and spraying chemicals.

A 2003 report of the National Statistics Office stated that over 50 percent of working children in the Philippines, or about one of every two Filipino children are in the agricultural sector.

Cayanong said that there are 2.4-million Filipino children working in hazardous industries and close to 400,000 of them are in Central Visayas.

Some sectors however had challenged this figures saying that even the DOLE-7 registry accounted for only close to 30,000 child laborers.

At least 72 percent of these total number of child laborers in the region are in the sugar industry, said Cayanong.

In terms of child labor incidences in the country, Region 7 has been in either third or fourth rank, following the National Capital Region and Region 4-A, he added. — Gregg M. Rubio/RAE