Lawmakers attribute rise in child labor to lack of RH law

MANILA, Philippines – The rising incidence of child labor in the country was not only due to poor enforcement of labor laws but also caused by the failure to enact the Reproductive Health (RH) bill, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said yesterday.

The report of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the International Labor Organization that the number of child workers in the Philippines has breached the five million mark comes on the heels of the aggravated maternal death rate of 162 deaths per 100,000 live births.

Lagman, principal author of the controversial measure, said escalating incidence of child labor “transcends labor laws implementation and police enforcement as it is an indictment of the government’s failure to positively address the population problem by enacting the RH bill.”

“Both maternal deaths and child labor will be reduced and prevented once the RH bill becomes a law,” he said.

“The unremitting pregnancies of Filipino women in the marginalized sectors due to lack of information and access to reproductive health and family planning services and supplies largely contribute to the increase in child labor as numerous children are suffered to work in their tender years to augment family incomes,” Lagman said.

He said child labor also results in the massive school dropout rate and imperils the country’s achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of universal primary education by 2015.

As of October 2011, Lagman said there were 5.49 million children at work, of which 3.028 million were considered as child laborers and 2.462 million were reported exposed to hazardous child labor.

Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara, a member of the House committee on labor, lamented the increase in incidence of child labor not only contravenes the Constitution and labor laws but also runs counter to Filipino culture and beliefs.

“We are known to be a nation that respects human rights and values the integrity of the family so this issue cuts deeply and demands immediate action,” Angara said.

More jobs, opportunities

Sen. Loren Legarda, for her part, called on the government to provide more jobs and opportunities for the poor as the best way to address the rising number of child laborers in the country.

With the National Statistics Office reporting an estimated 5.6 million children aged five to 17 now working in various fields in the country, Legarda said it is a clear indication that the Anti-Child Labor Law (Republic Act 9231) is not working or not being enforced effectively by the authorities.

“It is lamentable that despite having the Anti-Child Labor Law in place since 2003, the number of minors engaged in various kinds of work continues to surge,” Legarda said.

“This only means that more and more children are forced to work to support their families and are deprived of their childhood and their right to education,” she added.

Legarda said the enforcement of RA 9231 should be taken very seriously by the concerned authorities but more importantly, the problem of poverty must also be addressed in order to stop the continuous practice of many families to send their children off to work.

“Since child labor is attributed to poverty and lack of decent work, the strengthening of job creation, promotion of livelihood activities, and the provision of basic services to indigent families could help put an end to child labor,” Legarda said.

She said the DOLE is on the right track with its Batang Malaya campaign, which is part of the Philippine Program Against Child Labor.

The program aims to bring down the number of child laborers in the country by 75 percent by 2015.

“I enjoin everyone to do what they can in order to give back to these children the happy and normal childhood they deserve, far from the hard work in the rice fields and the dangers of the mines and the mountains,” Legarda said.

“The time will come when they must work, but for as long as they are children, they must be protected, cared for, and assured their rights as children,” she added.

Sen. Franklin Drilon said he was alarmed by the latest data on child laborers in the country.

“This is a serious problem that we must look into. We must activate our inspectorate system in the Department of Labor and Employment,” said Drilon who once served as labor secretary.

“There are no excuses for having child laborers in our country. We have enough talent, we have enough manpower which are unemployed. Therefore, the use of child labors should not be tolerated,” he added.

Drilon also cited the need to address poverty, which he said has been exploited by unscrupulous employers because of the desperate need of poor families to make ends meet.

The ILO defines child labor as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity that is harmful to physical and mental development. –-Paolo Romero (The Philippine Star) with Marvin Sy