ILOILO city — Poverty pushes children to leave school to work even under extreme weather and harsh conditions to augment their daily needs.
During sugar milling season, for example, parents and some minor children take advantage of the demand for workers in sugar plantations in Negros Occidental and work as migratory sugarcane workers or sacadas.
Just this Feb. 15 the Department of Labor (DOLE) Region 6 received a report of a 16-year-old child working as a sacada in a sugarcane plantation in Isabela, Negros Occidental.
Subsequently DOLE-6 launched a “Sagip Batang Manggagawa Operation” in partnership with the Municipal Social Welfare and Development Office of Isabela.
Sagip Batang Mangagawa is a DOLE advocacy program, part of the national strategy to reduce the number of child workers, especially those in hazardous work.
DOLE-6 Child Labor Prevention and Elimination Program focal Zyrene Prietos found out that the child was hired lawfully by the employer. The child’s name was included among the 56 sacadas from Antique listed under the Certificate of Authority to Transport.
The Barangay ID presented by the child laborer showed that he was already 20 years old. However, upon verification of his birth certificate, the team found out that the child was only 16 years old.
He revealed that he told the issuing authority of the ID that he was already of legal age.
He said he stopped going to school and chose to work to augment his parent’s income.
The said child was sent back to his parents in Culasi, Antique with the help of his contractor few days after he was rescued.
“DOLE’s effort to curb the existence of child labor does not stop there,” said Regional Director Atty. Sixto T. Rodriguez, Jr. “Our aim is to provide a brighter future for the rescued child laborer through proper education and he will be referred to the Department of Education to continue his studies through the Alternative Learning System.”
Rodriguez also said that the DOLE regional office will assist the parents to secure some farm inputs from the Department of Agriculture for the land they are cultivating in Antique.
According to the Human Rights Watch, of nearly 250 million children engaged in child labor around the world, the vast majority – 70 percent, or some 170 million – are working in agriculture.
Child agricultural workers frequently work for long hours in scorching heat, haul heavy loads of produce, are exposed to toxic pesticides, and suffer high rates of injury from sharp knives and other dangerous tools. Their work is grueling and harsh, and violates their rights to health, education, and protection from work that is hazardous or exploitative.
According to the International Labor Organization’s new report on child labor, the number of children working in agriculture is nearly ten times that of children involved in factory work such as garment manufacturing, carpet-weaving, or soccer-ball stitching. Yet despite their numbers and the difficult nature of their work, children working in agriculture have received little attention compared to child labor in manufacturing for export or children involved in commercial sexual exploitation. (DOLE-6/PN)
