Worst forms of child labor persist in Philippines

MANILA – Millions of children in the Philippines continue to engage in the worst forms of labor despite a massive awareness of the problem and efforts to address it because root causes such as poverty remain unaddressed, various groups said Wednesday.

Citing a 2011 survey by the Philippine government and the International Labor Organization, speakers at a forum about the child labor situation in the Philippines disclosed around 3 million children aged 5 to 17 remain trapped in hazardous labor activities, mostly in the agriculture and services sectors.

A survey by government a decade earlier showed 2.4 million Filipino children were working in hazardous environments.

“Despite all the efforts of government, the international community and multi-sectoral groups, child laborers still exist,” Anna Leah Colina of the Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research, one of the organizers of the forum, told Kyodo News.

“It’s good there are these various but concerted efforts of government agencies. But, you still have to go back to the ground level and see how effective were these policies and interventions. Did the people feel it? Based on what we saw, the push factors to the child labor problem are still there,” she added.

In her presentation at the forum of her group’s study last year on child labor in mining and plantations, Colina said poverty and low family income are the main reasons children work rather than go to school.

Lack of high schools, the difficulty to reach schools and landlessness contribute to the problem, she added.

In a video documentary, a 15-year-old boy from Camarines Norte, a province in the southern part of Luzon, claimed to be living proof of the problem.

The boy, filmed in November 2014, said he decided to become a “child miner,” a job that endangers his life every time he enters the tunnel, because he wants to help his family by earning a living.

But despite being left behind, and sometimes discriminated against by former classmates, the boy hopes to continue his education.

Colina said that not only are child laborers exposed to different physical and chemical hazards in mines and plantations, they are also vulnerable to social hazards, citing, for example, the use of drugs by some.

With the support of the European Union, Colina said her group implemented a return-to-school program for child laborers in selected areas in the countryside, complemented with livelihood training for parents.

Among the beneficiaries is Jeraldine Aboy, 14, a child laborer from Bukidnon province in the southern island of Mindanao.

Wearing the traditional dress of Manobo tribeswomen, Aboy told the forum she started working at a sugarcane plantation at age 6 to assist her father until fully assuming the job at the age of 8 because her father got sick. She is the second of her parents’ five children.

“My mother seldom gets a job and my older brother is a special child. At such a young age, I had to work in the plantation and it was difficult — the heat, the exhaustion, and there were snakes,” she said.

Aboy cuts, piles and transports sugarcane as well as burns dried leaves and removes weeds in the plantation.

“I was 10 years old when I stopped going to school. I have lost hope that I could still go back to school, and I thought that I would be a singer instead. I usually sing to endure and forget the feeling of pain and fatigue from working in the plantation,” she said.

But last year Aboy was able to return to school after Colina’s organization set up a learning center in her hometown.

She said she continues to work at the plantation, but, because of her studies, she has stopped doing it on a daily basis and goes there only on Sundays. Her 12-year-old brother sometimes helps her there because the income their mother makes from sewing is not enough for the family, especially because her father is dealing with kidney disease.

“It is a good thing that the EILER program reached us. I believe the program will help me reach my dreams,” Aboy said of Colina’s organization.

In his keynote speech at the forum, European Union Ambassador to the Philippines Guy Ledoux called on governments to “implement transformative development strategies that enable their people, especially the children, to enjoy their rights and realize their full potential.”

Even as he finds the government commitment to eradicate the worst forms of child labor in the country encouraging, the envoy stressed, “There is certainly a lot of work and challenges ahead.”

“Abuse against children is unacceptable whenever and wherever it happens,” Ledoux said.

International Labor Organization representative Giovanni Soledad noted the Philippines is regarded by the United States Department of Labor to have made significant advancement in 2012 and 2013 in its efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labor.

But he said the government is still faced with the challenge of enforcing and implementing policies and programs, especially in remote corners of the country where the problem mainly persists.

“The more we talk about this, and share best practices and expose the evil or the ills, the more we’ll have the capability to solve it,” Soledad said.

==Kyodo