Parents of child laborers to undergo counseling

MANILA, Philippines – Parents of children found engaged in child labor would be subjected to counseling or possibly enrolled as beneficiaries of the government’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) instead of being criminally prosecuted, according to Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman.

“There is no law that we can use as basis to punish these erring parents,” Soliman told reporters on the sidelines of the launch of the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act last Monday.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) earlier said it had monitored rampant cases of child labor in the Philippines, especially in areas devastated by Super Typhoon Yolanda.

Under 4Ps, poor households get monthly cash grants in exchange for ensuring that their children go to school and chart at least an 85 percent attendance rate.

Beneficiaries are also required to regularly take their children to health centers for medical checkup. They are also required to attend family development sessions where they get life coaching and parenting counseling.

Soliman said erring parents should be reminded of the psychological and physical damage that their children would suffer if made to work at an early age.

Based on an assessment by ILO of the Yolanda-affected towns in Western and Central Visayas, 54 percent of the 112 barangays in the two regions have children who were “involved in child labor or in harsh and dangerous employment. –Rainier Allan Ronda (The Philippine Star)