Child Labor in Philippines

Philippines

Definition of Child Labor

We should understand the definition of child labor for better understanding.

A person under the age of 18 is called child in Philippines. As soon as person reaches the age of 18 years of age he's no longer considered child and becomes adult automatically.He can do any work for his life and future like contracting marriage or transacting business deals with corresponding legal effects. The same definition cannot be said about "child labor" which has been defined and interpreted in many different ways.In common the definition of child labor is the employment of children in hazardous and non hazardous jobs on less or more regular basis , to earn a livelihood for themselves or for others. There is need to separate the term child labor from child work because we can't call all the types of child work child labor.

A child labor works for the economy of  his country ,  his work is useful socially and he use manual and intellectual effort , which result in the production of goods or performance of services.But some child work for their passion. we can't call a passionate child worker a child labor even he do work for money.

Total estimated population of philippines is 100,096,496 as of July 1 2014.Millions of children in here are forced to working at very young ages.According to a survey by the international labor organization there are 5.59 million child  working in the Philippines and almost all of them are working in hazardous conditions.In the Philippines,according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) child labourers aged 5-17 years old 2.1 million .95% of them do hazardous work.. 69 per cent of these are aged 15-17 years old, beyond the minimum allowable age for work but still exposed to hazardous working conditions.

In 2011 a survey conducted on child labor by the national statics office (NSO). According to that survey the following hazardous work places and industries where child workers are:

In Farms 55.4% child labor work
12.2% child work at own home
1.8% work at other's home
8.9% at seas and oceans
0.7% in factories
5.1% in marketes
1.5% child workers do construction or quarry sites
streets  9.0%
mines and offices 0.7%
4.9% at employer's residences

These are regions in Philippines have the highest incidence of hazardous child labor:

1. Central Luzon (10.6 %)
2. Bicol (10.2 %)
3. Western Visayas (8.5%)
4. Northern Mindanao (8.2%) , and
5. Central Visayas (7.3 5%)

“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 

“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.

 Child Labor Industries in Philippines 

In Philippines child are work in the following industries.

Carpet weaving

Wood-based Industries

Soccer Balls

Restaurant and Allied Industries 

Automobile Workshops

Mining

Stone/Marble cutting

Mixing Pesticides

Deep Fishing

Glass Factory

Hotel Work

Clothing Industries

Textile Work

Sugar Factories

Sugarcane Fields

Tobacco Farms

Footwear Industries

Football stitching

Street Work and much more...

Measures against child labor by the government

Philippines government is working strictly on the moniter system to stop the child labor there.

In 2013, the Philippines made a significant advancement in efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labor.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is largest sector of child labor updated the country's hazardous list for children and conducted additional research on child labor in agriculture  to inform policy and programs.The government is helping the local institutes to conduct seminars and awareness against child labors and creating free communities.

ILO is also supporting and has been the Philippine in the implementation of Philippine Program Against Child Labor (PPACL) through its International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC).

Child Labor Laws in Philippine

Causes  of Child Labor in Philippines

I count only two major causes behind child labor in Philippines.The 3rd is only valid to count when a nation has lack of resources.

1. Poverty
2. Bad Education System
3. Population

Poverty

Poverty is the main cause behind child labor. The rich people rarely compromise with poor people. Philippines is the 2nd smallest country in the world but it is reality that it is a developing country not developed country.Child laboring is very slowly but steadily destroying Philippines and the future of it's child.

Solution:
As i mention that it is a  2nd smallest country of the world. It is also a beautiful country as it has lots of islands , many  glacier etc so it should gain profit from it.

Bad Education System

Education system of today's is not very fast , general , moral  as well as helper for poor students in their economic life.The other bitter reality is the education in Philippines is income source for the authority not education for children.So the poor children can't afford it and their dreams remains dreams of getting better education and better future. Some students don't like to do study because they want do something big and the education that they getting is not able to give them respective things of their dreams. Today's education system , not only in a country  , but in all over the world , is not able to judge the passion of the students. In the result the student becomes dis heart from their studies and they left their  studies forever.

In schools the teacher don't care to what actually the student wants to study. Some students want to know about technology but due to lack of guidelines they failed to select suitable subject for themselves.

Population

for a developed country population matters rarely but for a developing country population matters very commonly. For Philippines the population is increasing not the resources. So for a family of 5 persons it is very important to have more income than a person earns per day.