One child laborer too many

DISTURBING and worrisome is how the government should look at the findings of the survey financed by the International Labor Organization (ILO) showing that there are 5.59 million child laborers in the Philippines, with most of them working in hazardous conditions.

And if, indeed, the government is very concerned about this situation, then it should take firm and decisive steps to address it as soon as possible.

The 2011 Survey on Children conducted by the National Statistics Office revealed that out of the 29.019 million Filipino children aged 5 to 17, about 18.9 percent, or 5.59 million, are already working.

This is higher than the 4 million Filipino working children registered in a 2001 survey conducted by the ILO and the US Department of Labor.

According to the survey, 60 percent of child laborers in the country are in the agricultural sector, with around 3 percent of them working in mines, quarries, or factory sites. The regions with the highest incidence of child labor are Central Luzon, Bicol, Western Visayas, Northern Mindanao and Central Visayas. The 2.993 million child laborers exposed to hazardous conditions include those involved in the worst forms of child labor—the sex trade, drug trafficking, other illicit activities and armed conflict.

What’s disturbing and worrisome is that the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) seems to have been taken aback by the survey results.

“We’re surprised by this,” Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz is reported to have said.

But to her credit, Secretary Baldoz has pledged to meet the challenge head-on, saying that the DOLE would do the “utmost in making every barangay in the country with high child-labor incidence child labor-free.”

Baldoz said the government had identified 609 of the country’s poorest municipalities and was targeting 80 barangays that had the highest incidence of child labor. And to allay fears that children forced by economic circumstances to work even in hazardous jobs get no formal education, she pointed out that the survey showed 69.5 percent of child laborers, or 2.106 million, were attending school.

But even if more than two-thirds of child laborers do get to attend school, that is not a good reason for the government to ignore or shirk from its responsibility to stamp out child labor.

Any work or economic activity performed by a child that subjects him or her to any form of exploitation, or is harmful to his or her health and safety, or physical, mental, or psychosocial development, is prohibited, according to the law.

The ILO is right: “We have to get to the root of child labor, which is linked with poverty and lack of decent and productive work.”

And what should be done, apart from keeping children in school, is to ensure decent and productive work for parents and basic social protection for families.

This, of course, is easier said than done, as it involves immense resources that our current level of economic development simply cannot afford to undertake in one fell swoop.

The realistic—and viable—approach is to lick the problem of child labor one barangay at a time, with the government having clear targets and monitoring progress in program implementation.

After all, a nation that allows its children to work instead of keeping them in school or at play not only robs them of their growing-up years and violates children’s rights, it also puts its own future in jeopardy.