DOLE reactivates anti-child labor team in Camarines Norte

LEGAZPI CITY, Aug. 31 – The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is reactivating its anti-child labor action team in Camarines Norte, an area in Bicol once considered by the International Labor Organization (ILO) as a province in the Philippines with high incidence of Worst Forms of Child Labor (WFCL).

The move would revive the Camarines Norte provincial Sagip Batang Mangaggawa-Quick Action Team (SBM-QAT) in line with the Philippine Program Against Child Labor (PPACL) strategic framework whose implementation was started in 2007.

It is aimed at making the province child labor-free by 2015, the regional office here of the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) on Tuesday said.

SBM-QAT was originally formed in 2004 in response to a survey conducted in 2003 by the ILO that uncovered more than 1,000 minors in the province engaged in WFCL, the PIA report said.

The ILO findings also gave birth to the Tanggol Bata-Camarines Norte Media Advocacy Group (TB-CNMAG), an organization composed of Camarines Norte print, radio and TV journalists including the Kabataan News Network (KNN) and supported by local government units (LGUs) and non-government organizations (NGOs), it added.

This media group helped in providing information about the bad effects of child labor and vigorously promoted children’s rights and welfare, a latest KNN report posted on its website said.

A recent case study involving 94 children found working in small-scale mines in Paracale, Camarines Norte shows that 67 percent of them were adolescents aged 17 years and younger, 20 percent younger than 11 while 7.4 percent were 18 and older.

It said 46 percent of these children were no longer in school and 28 percent were migrants from Quezon, Cavite and Masbate.

Underground mining work was done by 13.5 percent of the children while 18 percent were involved in processing and five percent serve as helpers carrying ores, the study said.

On wages, it said 32 percent received P5 to P100 on a piece-rate basis while 19 percent received P 50 to P 800 per week. Most of the children, 72 percent, decided to work while 38 percent claimed that the decision to work was made by their parents or relatives.

The study showed the risks of child labor in the small-scale mines owing to extremely dangerous underground work, their generally poor working conditions, exposure to toxic substances and very limited access to welfare, health and safety facilities.

However, given the community and its quasi-total dependence on small-scale mining, there is a need for concerted efforts by all sectors to the creation of alternative livelihood, facilitate access of child laborers to education and basic health services and immediately remove child labor from mining work.

Alvin Villamor, Bicol’s regional director of the DOLE based here said that since the fielding of the SBM-QAT in 2004 until 2007, it rescued a total of 904 minors from illegal child employers who were charged administratively for violations of labor standards.

Erring employers were also punished for violations of Republic Act 9231 of 2003 which is “an Act providing for the elimination of the worst forms of child labor and affording stronger protection for the working child amending RA 7610”, Villamor said.

Section 2 of RA 9231 declares that “it is the policy of the State to provide special protection to children from all forms of abuse, neglect, cruelty, exploitation and discrimination, and other conditions prejudicial to their development including child labor and its worst forms; provide sanctions for their commission and carry out a program for prevention and deterrence of and crisis intervention in situations of child abuse, exploitation and discrimination.”

“The best interests of children shall be the paramount consideration in all actions concerning them, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities, and legislative bodies, consistent with the principle of First Call for Children as enunciated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Every effort shall be exerted to promote the welfare of children and enhance their opportunities for a useful and happy life,” it added.

Using the same law, Villamor said the Team, assisted by DOLE enforcement units was able to work on the permanent closure of at least 15 commercial establishments mostly KTV bars and beer houses in the province for employing minors in lewd shows. Owners of these establishments were criminally charged and made to restitute unpaid monetary claims by child victims.

Villamor said most of the rescued child laborers have been reintegrated with their respective families and communities with the help of Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and some were provided with educational assistance, skills training and livelihood assistance.

Still part of the DOLE’s response to the WFCL situation in the province, its provincial field office for Camarines Norte headed by Ruben Romanillos in 2006 launched the “Angel Tree” project which provided food, clothes, shoes, bags, school supplies and educational assistance to child laborers. Livelihood opportunities were also opened to their parents.

Two years later or in 2008, the DOLE also put in place its Kabuhayan para sa Magulang ng Batang Manggawa (KaSaMa) project which significantly contributed in providing families of child laborers access to decent livelihood opportunities thus preventing and relatively eliminating WFCL, Villamor said.

The KaSaMa Project was able to provide some P4 million worth of livelihood assistance to 296 parents of child laborers by the first semester of 2009, he added.

In accordance with the PPACL’s target, Villamor said the DOLE provincial field office in Camarines Norte is intensifying its anti-child labor program to transform the lives of child laborers, their families and communities towards their sense of self-worth, empowerment and development.

Studies show, according to Villamor that there are more than 24 million children in the Philippines who are already working and worse, many of them are working in the dangerous places like sugarcane plantations, fireworks factories, mines, and in the seas to do deep sea fishing.

Many of them oftentimes become victims of sexual exploitation ending up in prostitution dens and there are those young girls who go to different houses to become maids,” the DOLE Bicol chief pointed out.

According to the ILO, Camarines Norte is one of the eight provinces in the country with the high incidence of WFCL.

Acting on this social malady in the national level, Villamor said the DOLE and the ILO-International Program for the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) recently launched a new project called Strengthening National Capacities to Support the PPACL’s Vision of a Child Labor-Free Philippines.

This project, he said, aims to contribute to the PPACL’s goal of reducing the incidence of WFCL in the country by as much as 75 percent.

With this project, the concern of the PPACL will now be responded to with the conduct of a special survey on children which would serve as sound basis for the implementation of its four components namely knowledge management, effective partnership, area-based services and sustainability, Villamor explained.

In the Bicol region, the island of Masbate where an alarming stage of WFCL has been reported from cattle ranches, fishing and mining industries and entertainment houses has been as among the four provinces in the country for the area-based services component.

These provinces that include Quezon, Northern Samar and Bukidnon were identified by the PPACL partners and the ILO-IPEC based on the 2005-2008 Gender Statistics on Labor and Employment (GSLE) data which shows concentration of working children. (PNA) –LAP/LQ/DOC/cbd, Danny O. Calleja