DoLE orders monitoring of child labor cases

THE DEPARTMENT of Labor and Employment (DoLE) has ordered a nationwide monitoring or what it called “profiling” of child laborers with the aim of providing services and interventions to eliminate this abuse.

In a statement Sunday, Mr. Bello directed the DoLE regional and field offices to consolidate data from their social partners for the identification of target child laborers to assess their needs.

This would be then referred to concerned agencies for the provision of services and assistance needed by children and their families.

“Given the insufficient data on child laborers, it is necessary to first conduct nationwide profiling of the target child laborers and their families which will serve as a basis for the provision of appropriate services and interventions necessary to remove the children from child labor,” Labor Secretary Silvestro H. Bello III was quoted as saying in the order issued last week. Guidelines on the order have also been released.

According to DoLE, child labor refers to any work or economic activity as performed by children under 18 years of age and which subjects them to any form of exploitation or is harmful to their health and safety or physical, mental or psychological development.

In its 2011 survey, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) estimated that 2.1 million children aged five to 17 years old were engaged in child labor. Nearly all or 97.7 % were in hazardous work conditions.

The Labor Department said the target child laborers for profiling will come from the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) data repository of beneficiaries under the conditional cash transfer program called the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction or Listahanan. They could also come from each local government units’ community-based monitoring systems.

DoLE, as the chair of the National Child Labor Committee, would be responsible for monitoring and reporting if a child has already been removed from child labor.

The agency added that its initiatives were aligned with the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022, which targeted to reduce cases of child labor by 30% or 630,000 from the estimated 2.1 million nationwide. —