Some three million children in the Philippines, aged 5 to 17, are exposed to dangerous work environments, a survey of the National Statistics Office said. The results of the October 2011 Survey on Children were released Tuesday at the launching of "Batang Malaya," a nationwide campaign to fight child labor. A news release from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said the preliminary results of the survey showed that there are 5.492 million working children 5-17 years old as of October 2011. Of this number, "2.993 million (54.5 percent) are reported to be exposed to hazardous child labor," the DOLE said. The survey, conducted with the support of the International Labor Organization (ILO), is the first to use the ILO framework for statistical identification of working children, or children in employment, child labor, and hazardous child labor. Nearly 45 percent, or 2.46 million Filipino child workers, are considered to be engaged in permissible work that is not classified as child labor, according to the survey. Survey results The preliminary results of the survey showed that the Philippines has 5.492 million working children, aged from 5-17 years old, as of October 2011. The ILO defines working children as those aged from 5 to 17 years old, who worked at least one hour in the past 12 months. Out of the country's 5.492 million working children, more than half, or 3.028 million (55.1 percent) were considered as child laborers. The ILO defines child labor as working conditions that may harm children’s health, safety or morals, such as risk of abuse, long working hours, and exposure to sharp tools or poisonous chemicals. Child laborers perform non-permissible work or worked a certain number of hours beyond what is allowed by law:
- 5 – 14 years old: Maximum of up to four hours of non-hazardous work per day
- 15 – 17 years old: Maximum of eight hours of non-hazardous work per day
Among the child laborers, 2.993 million (98.9 percent) were considered to be exposed to hazardous child labor where children are exposed to physical, chemical, or biological risks. Hazardous child labor was found to be higher among boys with 66.8 percent compared to girls with 33.2 percent. The DOLE said the worst forms of child labor include all forms of slavery, such as trafficking, recruitment for armed conflict; prostitution and pornography, and illicit activities such as drug trafficking.
The 2011 survey on children conducted by the National Statistics Office (NSO) listed the following hazardous work places and industries where child labor is employed:
- Farms (55.4 percent)
- Own home (12.2 percent)
- Streets (9.0 percent)
- Others such as seas and oceans (8.9 percent)
- Markets (5.1 percent)
- Employer’s residence (4.9 percent)
- Other person’s house (1.8 percent)
- Construction or quarry sites (1.5 percent)
- Factories (0.7 percent), and
- Mines and offices (0.7 percent).
The following regions were reported to have the highest incidence of hazardous child labor:
- Central Luzon (10.6 percent)
- Bicol (10.2 percent)
- Western Visayas (8.5 percent)
- Northern Mindanao (8.2 percent), and
- Central Visayas (7.3 percent)
Reducing child labor by 75 percent Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said her agency aims to reduce by 75 percent the incidence of the worst forms of child labor by 2015. On Tuesday, the ILO launched a nationwide campaign against child labor on June 26 at Fun Ranch, Pasig City entitled “Batang Malaya: Child labor free Philippines.” The campaign was launched to meet the global deadline of ending the worst forms of child labor by 2016, according to a news release from the
ILO website. Baldoz noted that two-thirds of Filipino child laborers attend school. "Retention in school of the 69.5 percent of the child laborers and bringing back to school the 30.5 percent require a very focused and serious effort," she said. The National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), chaired by the
DOLE, aims to:
- institutionalize the survey on children;
- strengthen the operations of the NCLC by giving it a legal mandate, budget, and a dedicated secretariat;
- improve enforcement of Republic Act (RA) 9231 against perpetrators of the worst forms of child labor;
- monitor child labor even in unregulated sectors, and
- develop plans to address child labor.
“We have to get to the root of child labor which is linked with poverty and lack of decent and productive work,” said Director Lawrence Jeff Johnson of the ILO Philippines. “While we strive to keep children in school and away from child labor, we need to ensure decent and productive work for parents and basic social protection for families,” he added.
Survey on child labor Baldoz said the NCLC and ILO-Manila will formulate an inter-agency action plan for July 2012 to June 2016. The plan will be presented to the Human Development and Poverty Reduction Cluster for its approval and implementation. One of the features of this plan is the institutionalization of child labor statistics in the NSO's Labor Force Survey through the addition of child labor-related questions. Baldoz said the survey on children will provide the government a more accurate picture of the child labor situation in the country, which were not included in the 1995 and 2001 surveys. She said the 2011 survey is a rider survey to the NSO's October 2011 Labor Force Survey, but does not capture other worst forms of child labor as defined under ILO Convention 182.
Child labor-free barangays Baldoz noted that the provisions of RA 9231 on child labor sets the child’s working hours and penalizes violators. She said the law will get a further boost with President Benigno Aquino III’s creation of additional 372 labor inspectors. The DOLE's Child Labor-Free Barangay Campaign is targeting 80 barangays in 16 regions this year, she said. Even before the survey, the government has been focusing on convergence programs in providing services to child laborers and their families, Baldoz added. Government and non-government organizations provide livelihood assistance to parents while the DepEd provides alternative learning modes for children. "Our convergence efforts extend to the removal of children from abject work conditions through the Sagip Batang Manggagawa mechanism, which has resulted in the filing of cases and closure of establishments in cooperation with NGOs and civil society organizations," Baldoz said.
— LBG/VVP/YA, GMA News 
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