Worst forms of child labor are in Phl–EU study

By Riza Lozada

Despite the country being a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the worst forms of child labor exist locally, with the most glaring incidence of violation involving the use of drugs for minors to withstand 16 hours of work in mining areas, based on a European Union-commissioned study.

Filipino children as young as 5 years were already engaged in child labor, the EU-funded report on child labor said, noting that girls in mines were part of the indirect employment created by small-scale mines. “In mining communities, the incidence is 14.2 percent of which all are 93.75 percent are boys and only 6.25 percent are girls.”

In September 2010, the International Liberal Organization (ILO) released findings that the occurrence of accidents in small-scales mines are six-seven times higher than in large-scale mines.

This ILO report was validated with the EU research conducted from April to October last year revealing the worsening conditions of Filipino children working in plantations and mining.

They were found working for as long as 16 hours a day, using illegal drugs to keep them awake while working inside the tunnels, and getting very low wages.

“Whatever amount the child laborers receive as wages, they spend it for food (92 percent), clothes (9 percent), toys (9 percent), debt payment (8 percent) and house repairs (4 percent).  Also 6 percent of them save portion of their wages,” the EU report said.

“Extreme cases of worsening working conditions for child laborers in sugarcane plantations show how children are brought to plantations that are far from their hometown.  Trucks would pick them and bring them to ‘camps’ that are located in nearby provinces to stay and work there from two weeks to one month without their parents.  They stay and sleep in makeshift tents within the plantation,” the EU report said.

The worst forms of child labor as defined by Article 3 of the ILO Convention No. 182 are the following:

All forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, bondage and serfdom, and forced or compulsory labor, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict; the use, procuring or offering of child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic performances; and the use, procurement or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in relevant international treaties; and work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or moral of children.

At a public forum in Manila attended by the EU delegation headed by EU Ambassador Guy Ledoux, the multi-sector stakeholders presented programs and projects addressing child-labor issues.

“It is important that dissuasive penalties are imposed in practice on persons who subject children to work in hazardous or exploitative conditions,” Ledoux said.

But the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) expressed optimism that giving incentives to towns that follow the standards of child protection prescribed by the law, would likely be effective in advancing the cause of protecting children.

DILG OIC Director of the National Barangay Operations Office, Leo Trovela, told the forum of a department circular mandating local legislation to address child labor and integration of anti-child labor initiatives in the local development’s plans and programs.

Trovela also said the DILG would continue working with the Council for the Welfare of Children (CW) in providing education for children and livelihood for the families of these children.

Cymbeline RT Alejandrino, CWC OIC-deputy executive director, said the agency piloted the auditing of child-friendly governance with 12 indicators, one of which is child-labor incidence.  The CWC, she added, recognized child protection through the giving of presidential awards for this endeavor.

ILO Project Manager Cesar Giovanni Soledad said replacing lost income of a child laborer would be the best solution. “The root of this issue is the lack of decent work for parents. The key strategy is replacing lost income through sustainable livelihood,” he said.

Soledad said 60 percent of child labor is in the agricultural sector, which is informal and irregular in work. “We should not be talking about protection because child labor is a violation and this should be zero incidence,” he said.

Executive Director Imelda Villacin of the Quidan Kaisahan, which conducted for the EU the child-labor incidence research in Negros Occidental, submitted findings that most sugar-cane plantations use agro-chemicals harmful to workers.

Villacin said many children were undocumented because they worked under the names of adults.  She recommended that the monitoring of child-labor violations be localized with volunteers for “community child monitors,” and to complement this with capacity-building measures because “many are aware of the child rights but they do not know how to,” on protection.

Quidan and the Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research, Inc. (Eiler) are two EU-funded local partners to study the worst forms of child labor. The two partners organized the forum on the plight of child laborers in the Philippines, with the support of the delegation of the EU to the Philippines.

The EU partners also presented the best practices of civil-society engagement with the Local Government Units LGUs) in addressing child labor, such as direct assistance, technical and skills training on child laborers in Special Learning Centers, as well as public-advocacy activities on the impact on children of working in hazardous industries.

“Nearly 1,000 families of affected children benefited from these two projects in their first year of implementation, allowing the child-laborers to return from mines and plantations to schools,” the EU delegation said.

According to the US Department of Labor (DoL), children, primarily girls, are trafficked from rural to urban areas for domestic service and commercial sexual exploitation. It also cited reports indicating that boys are increasingly trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation, particularly for child pornography.

The Philippine National Police (PNP), in a report, also noted that child trafficking for labor is prevalent in Lanao del Sur in Mindanao.

The report also said children commonly work as domestic servants or kasambahay. Many child domestics work long hours, and their isolation in homes creates the potential for sexual harassment and verbal and physical abuse, it said.

Child domestic servants are often denied access to education while domestic workers sometimes receive no pay, have some of their wages withheld, or work as forced laborers.

Child soldiering is also a problem, particularly among anti-government and terrorist organizations, it added.

Sources say children continue to be found in the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) working as guides, messengers, and porters.

In early 2014, the Philippines signed a peace agreement with the MILF, completing negotiations that had been ongoing for more than a decade. Children have been reported in the MILF where abductions have occurred, including for the use of children as human shields.

While the National People’s Army (NPA) has indicated a willingness to stop the use of children, they continue to be found in the NPA’s ranks.

The UN also reported the Abu Sayyaf Group has targeted children for conscription as both combatants and non-combatants. The UN has raised concerns about the use of children by security forces of the state.

Supertyphoon Yolanda, which hit a major part of the Visayas region in 2013, left behind devastation that affected millions of people but before the typhoon, children already were involved heavily in agriculture.

The loss of family livelihoods and incomes increases the possibility that children will engage in hazardous work, the report said. Adult migration for work and displacement from homes may make children more exposed to exploitation in hazardous work or human trafficking, the US report noted.