Davao City ‘still prone to child labor’

GOVERNMENT and non-government organizations monitoring incidents of child labor said Davao City and its neighboring provinces remain as their priority areas “because of the continued presence of factors that lead to child labor.”

Patrick Asinero, coordinator Pag-aaral ng Bata para sa Kinabukasan (ABK2) for Davao City and Compostela Valley, said the said areas have “several forms of child labor as the areas have mining, quarrying, plantations.”

“The ABK2 Initiative targets the Philippine Time-Bound Program of 2003-identified worst forms of child labor (WFCL) which are: children in deep-sea fishing, commercial sexual exploitation, domestic work, pyrotechnics, mining or quarrying, and sugar cane plantations. In addition, we also target children in commercial agriculture of copra, rubber, mango, banana, and corn; and children in scavenging.”

Out of these identified WFCL only children in deep-sea fishing, and children in pyrotechnics are not present in the provinces here in the region, Asinero said in Friday’s Kapihan sa PIA.

“In Pantukan, Comval (Compostela Valley), mostly children are in mining and quarrying because there is a lot of small-scale mining there. There are also these banana plantations. In Davao City there is a strong account scavenging, commercial sex exploitation, and domestic help,” he added.

Asinero said the Davao Region has been identified as a traffic area of domestic help and commercial sex exploitation.

“However we have no specific data kung gaano kalaki talaga ang engaged and at risk even sa government nahihirapan rin silang kumuha ng data. But based on the NGOs’ data, on what has been reported to us, 60 percent are engaged and 40 percent are at risk,” he said.

Marlito Ayala of Department of Labor and Employment in Davao Region said the government admits as poor families are in poverty they “can’t be entirely stopped from making their children do work.”

“What we do then is dual. We respond to reports of child exploitation, apprehend, but the important side is to raise the awareness that parents should not let their children do labor,” Ayala said.

He added: “Child labor has lasting effects in the country’s socio-economics. The existence of child laborers as underground workers prohibits those who are able bodied members of the work force to acquire jobs. Maliit rin ang sweldo sa kanila so slow ang flow ng pera to the families.”

“In the long run kung ang mga bata totally hindi na mag-aral dahil nagtrabaho sila in their youth then most probably ang mga anak rin nila maging child laborers so may cycle,” he said.

Department of Education (DepEd) implementers, principals Lita Montalban of Emar School in Matina and Nena Laurente of Felipe Calderon Elementary School in Bunawan said they have combated child labor through education in their areas.

“We taught the parents on what child labor brings. We requested them that they should at least have their children go to school once a week to get their learning through the Alternative Learning System of DepEd and slowly bumaba ang child labor,” Laurente said.

“Sa ngayon more than a hundred scholars, child laborers, ang under sa ating initiative. In response to the call of DepEd to address child labor works with the barangays, sila actually una kong ni-lecturan, hanggang sila na rin ang naging partners to make sure bumaba ang child laborers sa Matina Aplaya,” Montalban said.

ABK2 has the World Vision Development Foundation as its lead agency together with the Christian Children’s Fund Philippines, and the Education Research and Development Assistance Foundation Inc.

Partner agencies from the government are the DepEd, Dole, Department of Social Welfare and Development, Department of Interior and Local Government, International Labor Organizations International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labor, and the local government units with other stakeholders.

ABK2 is now in its second phase with the slogan Teach Now! (Take Every Action for the Children Now!) to emphasize the urgent action needed to help out children in the WFCL.

June 12 was declared as “World Day Against Child Labour” with this year’s theme “Go for the Goal: End Child Labour.” –Jade C. Zaldivar, Sunstar