Phl gets $15-M US grant vs child labor

MANILA, Philippines – The US government has granted $15 million for the education and other services of Filipino children engaged in hazardous forms of child labor.

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said the grant to the World Vision Foundation (WVF) showed that the US government recognizes the Philippines’ efforts in combating child labor in its worst forms.

According to Baldoz, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) had endorsed to the US Department of Labor the award of the grant to World Vision.

World Vision is a leading partner of the Philippine Program Against Child Labor (PPACL), which currently provides educational assistance to about 30,000 children engaged in or at risk of the worst forms of child labor through its project, “Combating Child Labor in the Philippines through Education: The ABK Initiative-Phase II.”

Baldoz said the Philippine government has been seriously taking action to eliminate the worst forms of child labor in the country for the past years.

“The fight against child labor has been yielding concrete and positive results,” she said.

Various measures have been adopted that paved the way for the speedy resolution of reported child labor cases and the rescue of hundreds of minors employed in bars.

Baldoz said since 1993 up to the first semester of this year, 2,998 child laborers have been rescued through the DOLE’s Sagip Batang Manggagawa.

“The efforts of the government to address the child labor problem in the country are consistently intensifying and continuing,” she said.

She added that recently, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) ordered all governors, city and municipal mayors, barangay heads, and DILG regional directors to formulate local legislation to address child labor and to integrate anti-child labor initiatives in their respective local development plans and programs.

The move, she said, would provide more teeth to the implementation of the PPACL at the local level.

Meanwhile, DOLE admitted yesterday that child prostitution existed in the country, but the Philippine government has successfully reduced the prevalence of such form of child labor.

In a statement, Baldoz said there was a sharp decline in the incidence of child prostitution as the government intensified inspection of commercial establishments and the rescue of victims of child labor.

Baldoz said DOLE has ordered the permanent closure of 27 establishments, mostly KTV bars, that were found employing minors or child workers.

Based on the US embassy’s 10th Annual Trafficking in Persons Report on the Philippines, child sex tourism remained a serious problem in the country. –Mayen Jaymalin (The Philippine Star)