DOLE meets Sagip Batang Manggagawa Quick Action Team in Southern Leyte

Maasin City, Southern Leyte, Dec. 23 (PIA) -– The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE ) met the members of the Sagip Batang Manggagawa Quick Action Team (SBMQAT) here, December 22 in order to re-orient them and present the issues and problems in the program implementation against child labor and child trafficking throughout the province.

DOLE Regional Director Forter G. Puguon, one of the resource speakers disclosed during his presentation on the program against child labor that DOLE envisioned a “child labor-free” Philippines and “works to transform the lives of child laborer, their families as well as the community towards their sense of self-worthy, empowerment and development.”

The SBMQAT is an inter-agency quick action program that aims to respond to cases against child laborers in extremely hopeless conditions. It shall be involved in detecting, monitoring and responding to the most hazardous forms of child labor, it was learned.

In RD Puguon’s presentation, he discussed how to prevent children in child labor, how to stop those who are already working, particularly working in factories and other places of employment and imposing necessary sanctions on the illegal employer or recruiter and providing psycho-social services to child labor victims and other such services concerning them.

While, DOLE Provincial head Fe Norma Valuis, who welcomed the participants in the one-day regular meeting held at Candy’s function Hall here presented the roles and functions of each member-agency, the highlights of accomplishments for the year 2010 and the necessary trainings to enhance the child labor program implementation of the province.

Some SBMQAT member-agencies are the following: Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG); Department of education (DepEd); Philippine National Police (PNP); Department of Justice (DOJ); Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD); the Philippine Information Agency (PIA); non-government organizations such as Plan International and the Federation of Omega Beneficiaries (FOBI), among others. (PIA-soleyte)