Sectors join anti-child labor campaign in Bangsamoro areas

COTABATO CITY — A big cross-section bloc had pledged during a foreign assisted workshop here to maximize cooperation against child labor and use of children as combatants, a problem prevalent in the Bangsamoro region.

Assisted by the Japanese government via the International Labour Organization of the United Nations, the August 22 to 25 capacity-building forum here on child labor was the seventh since May 2003, a joint initiative of both foreign donors, the Bangsamoro labor ministry and the Integrated Resource Development for Tri-people, or IRDT.

IRDT's director, Kalma Jikiri-Isnain, told reporters Saturday among the participants to the four-day planning sessions here were police personnel, employees of different Bangsamoro agencies and representatives from various non-government organizations that have humanitarian activities in conflict-stricken areas in the autonomous region.

Police Master Sgt. Liza Siva, chief clerk of the Women and Children Protection Section of the Cotabato City Police Office under the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, said she learned from the workshop new strategies in addressing child labor and use of children as combatants.

Participants to the workshop, among them officials of different peace-advocacy outfits, told reporters the cooperation of the Japanese government, the ILO, the Ministry of Labor and Employment-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and the IRDT in nipping child labor in BARMM from the bud is a big boost to longtime multi-sector efforts of addressing the problem.

Among the resource persons in the workshop was Bai Sara Jane Sinsuat, director of the regional labor ministry's Bureau of Employment, Promotion and Welfare.

Poverty and underdevelopment due to decades of armed conflicts and lack of access to schools are among the reasons why there is a child labor problem in the six provinces and three cities in BARMM, according to Bangsamoro Labor Minister Muslimin Sema.

"That is something we are trying to resolve now as part of the joint peace and development efforts of the BARMM government and Malacañang. We are thankful to the government of Japan, the ILO and the IRDT for helping us address the problem," Sema said.