RH law to minimize child labor — Lagman

The rise in the number of children at work could be traced to the absence of a Reproductive Health (RH) law in the Philippines, a senior member of the House of Representatives said on Friday.

At the same time, a child welfare group urged the Aquino administration to act fast to curb the rising incidence of child labor by addressing the need of poor Filipinos for food, shelter, jobs and social services.

“The escalating incidence of child labor in the Philippines transcends labor-law implementation and police enforcement as it is an indictment of the government’s failure to positively address the population problem by enacting the reproductive health bill,” Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said. Lagman, one of the principal authors of the RH bill in the House, said both maternal deaths and child labor will be reduced and prevented once the RH bill becomes a law.

“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,” he said.

“Child labor also results in the massive school drop-out rate and imperils the country’s achieving the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015,” Lagman added.

As of October 2011, 5.49 million children were considered to be working, 3.028 million of which were considered as child laborers and 2.462 million reported to be exposed to hazardous child labor, Lagman said, citing data from the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) and the International Labor Organization (ILO).

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.

Child welfare group Akap Bata said the growing number of child laborers was a manifestation of the Aquino administration’s failure to address the root causes of poverty in the country, and due to its negligence in providing education, shelter and other social services.

After two years in office, the group said President Aquino should do more.

“Essentially, the Aquino government itself pushes our children into hazardous conditions in juvenile employment, as it is inutile in the face of layoffs, demolitions and high prices of basic goods and services,” Lean Flores, Akap Bata spokesman said.

“When families do not have income, they cannot eat or live in decent homes, nor send their children to school. Thus, more and more children work in the streets, factories or farm areas instead of studying, playing, and enjoying their childhood,” she added. –Efren B. Chavez, Daily Tribune