DoLE, ILO crack down on child labor in Region 8

ORMOC CITY, Leyte, Philippines (PIA) — The International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) are embarking jointly on a new project seeking to at least halve incidents of child labor by 2016.

“We hope to rescue children from the worst forms of child labor,” DoLE Region 8 Director Forter Puguon said during the first day of the two-day Capacity Building, Organizational and Strategic Planning Workshop for members of the Regional Child Labor Committee held at Sabin Resort Hotel in Ormoc City.

The worst forms of child labor include all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale of a child; trafficking of children, meaning the recruitment of children to do work far away from home and from the care of their families, in circumstances within which they are exploited; debt bondage or any other form of bonded labor or serfdom; forced or compulsory labor, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict; commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), including the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, or the production of pornography or for pornographic performances; use, procuring or offering of a child by others for illegal activities, also known as children used by adults in the commission of crime including the trafficking or production of drugs.

Puguon said the effective elimination of child labor can only be achieved through an intensified, sustained and unified effort of all stakeholders including government agencies, parents, the church, non-government organizations, among others.

He said the call for a strong tripartite action against child labor is one of the DoLE’s priorities as it pushes for collective efforts in eliminating the worst forms of child labor in the region.

“This brings to the fore the urgent need for a mechanism through which holistic and sustained convergence efforts may be achieved, namely, the creation of the Regional Child Labor Committee which is capacitated to ensure that child labor concerns in the entire region are responded to and mainstreamed into the regional, provincial, city and municipal development plans and programs,” the DOLE 8 director said. “We will be reactivating the said committee so as to address the increasing incidence of child labor cases especially in the Eastern Visayas region.”