Lim said he was shocked when he visited the victim in her room at the Jose Abad Santos Mother and Child Hospital in Binondo and gave her food and financial assistance.

Lim was accompanied by hospital director Dr. Teodoro Martin, social welfare department chief Jay de la Fuente, barangay chairman Vicente Tan and Gandara police community precinct commander Chief Inspector Christian de la Cruz.

After learning how badly the victim had allegedly been treated from the start, Lim called up Manila Police District Station 11 chief Superintendent Ernesto Tendero Jr. with a directive to extend all the necessary assistance to the victim and file appropriate charges against the employer identified as Rosa So, 62, a resident of Sunshine Condominium in Binondo, Manila.

Charges of physical injury and forced labor, both in relation to Republic Act 7610 or anti-child abuse law, were filed against So, who is out on a reduced bail of P40,000.

De la Fuente said that last May, the victim left her hometown in Cotabato City after having been recruited to work as a housemaid in Manila by the Nilo Industrial Manpower Services, which made it appear that she was already 18 years old.

Since she started working at the So household last June, the victim had allegedly been physically abused and her P2,500 monthly salary was never given, De la Fuente said.

“She is locked in the bathroom, hit with power cables every time she gets an order, is fed rice with salt only once a day, and has to sleep in the bathroom,” he said.

Last Oct. 11, a concerned neighbor heard the victim’s cries and sought the help of Tan, who immediately called for police assistance.

Accompanied by policemen dispatched by De la Cruz, Tan took custody of the victim. He had her undergo a medical checkup and later brought to the police station for her statement.

So was also taken to the police station for investigation.

The victim told police that before Tan’s group rescued her, she was sleeping when So poured hot water on her face to wake her up and then repeatedly whipped her with a cable wire all over the body until she was prone on the floor.

Despite her pleas, So allegedly kicked her in the face, hitting her right eye, and then in the hip before punching her and hitting her face with a drinking glass. Her employer told her she would get hurt all the more if she would not stop complaining, the victim said.

When So took a hammer, the victim said she grabbed So’s hand to deflect the blow but So pinched her chest. When the victim let go of So’s hand, So bit the victim’s right hand and hit the victim’s right cheek with the hammer.

As the victim became dizzy, So again poured hot water on her and told her to clean her daughter’s room and then sleep in the bathroom.

The victim said she had just fallen asleep when Tan and the police team came and rescued her.

Lim said he could not believe that So’s latest attack came about because she reportedly was upset when the victim ate two pieces of pan de sal from the refrigerator without her permission.

by Sandy Araneta, The Philippine Star

In its report titled “Give Girls a Chance: Tackling child labor, a key to the future,” the ILO said girls in particular are in danger of being pushed to work at an early age by the financial crunch.

Girls account for approximately 46 percent of all child workers, according to the report. It further said that 53 million girls are considered working under the worst form of child labor. Of these, 20 million are aged less than 12 years old.

Global crisis

Although the report noted a 25-percent drop in the worst form of child labor through the programs under the ILO Convention 182, ILO’s Director Linda Wirth said, “The crisis may greatly affect the campaign against it.”

The report revealed that more than 100 million girls engaged in child labor are exposed in the worst forms of child labor including agriculture, domestic work, manufacturing, pyrotechnics, mining and quarrying, sexual exploitation and those involving armed groups.

A survey of 16 countries showed that 61 percent of girls in the five to 14 age group work in the agriculture sector. “The services sector, which includes children in domestic work in third party households, represents 30 percent of the number working, with 9 percent in industries,” the report said.

In the Philippines, the Department of Labor and Employment estimated that there are around 2.4 million cases of child labor this year. The department, however, does not have an exact figure on the genders of these child laborers.

Less education

The Labor organization report noted that the increase in the number of girls being forced to work is linked to the fact that many societies give preference to educating boys than girls. Because of poverty, families tend to sacrifice the education of young girls, forcing them to work under exploitative situations.

“In much of the world, boys and girls continue to be treated differently in terms of access to education. The result of these inequalities can be seen in the global literacy statistics. Of the 16 percent of the world’s population who are unable to read or write a simple statement, almost two out of three are women,” the report said.

Situation in RP

Wirth, however, said that in the Philippines, there is more number of boys than girls who drop out of school.

“Here, boys enter workforce. So girls have more chance of finishing school,” said Labor and Employment Assistant Secretary Ma. Teresa Soriano.

But the report further said that girls are more prone to be victims of the “double burden” situation.

“Girls often have the double burden, which is a gender issue. They are working outside but they are also expected to help inside the homes more than the boys,” Wirth said.

She added that one of the major issues in girls who engage in child labor is that “the kind of work they do leads to invisibility, which then leads to abuse and exploitation.”

Measures vs. child labor

Other factors that can push up the number of child laborers, the ILO statement said, are cuts in national education budgets and a decline in the remittances of overseas workers.

Meanwhile, the Labor department assured the public that they are cooperating with government agencies, non-government organizations and private institutions in combating the burgeoning problem of child labor in the country.

“The concern is rising so we are strengthening our enforcement mechanisms against it,” Soriano said.

She said that the Labor department is focusing on designing programs for the parents of the child laborers.

“Children are being forced to work by their parents simply because they need additional income. They see their children as way out of poverty. So, what Department of Labor and Employment does is help provide livelihood programs for the parents,” Soriano added.

The Department of Education (DepEd), on the other hand, said that it has been coordinating with various agencies regarding the right of children to quality education.

“They [child laborers] can be provided learning programs. There are no time constraints and no limitations,” said Cecil Nayve of the DepEd’s Bureau of Alternative Learning System.

Soriano said, “Part of our intervention is the work values and family values. We are hoping that with the programs that we are doing, which are community-centered, it can help eliminate the worst form of child labor.” – Bernice Camille V. Bauzon, Manila Times

The global financial crisis is expected to push a huge number of children, particularly girls, to drop out of school and become laborers, according to a study by the International Labour Organization (ILO) released Monday.

This development could erode the progress in fighting child labor in the past decade, said the report, called “Give Girls A Chance: Tackling Child Labor, A Key to the Future?”

These prospective child-laborers are children of parents who lost their livelihood due to the massive layoffs in companies worldwide.

“Although processes has been made in reducing child labor during the course of the past ten years, the onset of the global financial crisis threatens to erode recent advances,” said Michele Jankanish, director of the ILO International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor, in his foreword on the study.

The report said that young girls are more prone to become victims of child labor because there is evidence that in many countries families give preference to boys when making decision on which children should get an education. Families affected by the crisis, the study said, may have to make choices as to which children stay in school.

Boys stay in school

“When families are pushed deeper into poverty and have to choose between sending their sons and daughters to school, it tends to be daughters that lose out,” Jankanish said.

The Geneva-based organization estimates that around 100 million girls are engaged in child labor around the world, with 53 million of them involved in hazardous work.

Linda Wirth, director of ILO’s subregional office in Manila, said that while the school dropout rates among Filipino boys is higher than the girls, there is still need to focus on the effect of crisis on child labor among girls because most of them have “double burden.”

“They may be working outside, but there are also expected to do domestic duties at home,” Wirth told reporters on Monday. She said working and security risk posed by travelling great distance to school may result in low attendance in school among girls.

The ILO report, meanwhile, also said that most of the type of work of young female child workers—like domestic work, work in small-scale agriculture, and home-based workshops—are “less visible” than their male counterpart.

“Girls working in many situations also have little contact with others outside the immediate work environment, thus giving rise to concerns for their safety and welfare,” the report said.

Sent to Middle East

Cecil Flores-Oebanda, head of the anti-trafficking group Visayan Forum, said that child labor in the Philippines has evolved in the past 10 years.

“Before, the focus was child labor in the communities. Now, we intercept cases of young child workers with fake documents that are recruited as domestic workers in the Middle East,” Oebanda said. “As long as we do not realize that it (form of child labor) is evolving, it will remain a big problem.”

A 2001 Survey on Children by the National Statistics Office (NSO) showed that there were 4 million working children aged 5 to 17 in the Philippines. Of this figure, 2.4 million are in dangerous work and around 18,000 engaged in mining and quarrying.

Oebanda said that despite the presence of the anti-child labor law, Republic Act 9231, a conviction has yet to be made.

Experts from groups advocating child rights, meanwhile, said that implementation of the law is hampered by the difficulty of monitoring and lack of efforts from the local levels.

Lawyer Anjanette Saguisag of the United Nations Children’s Fund said there is a need to review existing policies in labor inspection.

“Child labor is not consciously monitored by labor inspectors,” Saguisag said.

Amihan Abueva, head of the End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography, and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT)-Philippines said that there is a need to strengthen local efforts in addressing the surge in number of dropouts and child laborers in the community.

“While there are laudable programs at the national level, some municipalities just take the number of dropouts,” Abueva said adding that local staff of the education department should ensure that the child workers and dropouts can still study through alternative learning system. –Jesus F. Llanto, Newsbreak

MOSCOW (ILO Online) – Three years ago, Sharofat came to Moscow with her three children from Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The 40-year-old woman wanted to join her husband who worked informally at a construction site in Moscow.

“At first, things were more or less o.k.”, she says. “The children were young and my husband had a job. I also found an informal job as a street cleaner or ‘dvornik’ as they call us in Russian”.

According to Sharofat, she accepted the jobs not so much for the money but for the shelter it would provide – a tiny 9 square meter dvornik’s lodge for her family of five.

But in August of last year, with the first signs of crisis, the construction sites in Moscow started to close down, and Sharofat’s husband lost his job. In September he managed to find a job outside Moscow, in the Vladimir region, and left his family in Moscow.

Sharofat received only one telephone call from him and has not heard from him since then. She is now struggling to make a living for her children and herself. She accepted a triple workload as a street cleaner but can only manage it with the help of her two elder children – her daughter Marifat and her 12-year-old son.

Our story is about 10-year-old Marifat who had to take the main burden of family support.

10 years old, working two jobs, no time for school
She helps her mother clean streets in Moscow. She has never attended school. With her limited knowledge of the Russian language and irregular status she has little chance of ever being admitted to a Moscow school.

Marifat says that even if she were admitted to school she wouldn’t have the time to study. She works from early morning cleaning streets, then spends the rest of the day looking after her four-year-old brother.

Still, it’s hard for the family to make ends meet. So Marifat is very proud to have found an extra job for herself – in addition to cleaning streets and providing child care, she cleans the apartment and does the laundry of an old woman in the building where they live.

She and her family have no plans to return to Dushanbe, they couldn’t afford it if they did and they would hardly find any job there. When asked about her plans for the future, Marifat said she simply has none – at the age of 10, life has taught her not to think ahead.

Marifat’s plight is emblematic of the growing vulnerability facing child labourers in general, and girl child labourers in particular, in today’s climate of economic crisis, unemployment and increasing poverty, says a new ILO report issued for the World Day Against Child Labour.

The report states that because of the increase in poverty resulting from the crisis, poor families with a number of children may have to choose which children stay in school. In cultures where a higher value is placed on education of male children, girls risk being taken out of school, and are then likely to enter the workforce at an early age.

The report cites the importance of investing in the education of girls as an effective way of tackling poverty, noting that educated girls are more likely to earn more as adults, marry later in life, have fewer and healthier children and have greater decision-making power within the household. Educated mothers are also more likely to ensure that their own children are educated, thereby helping to avoid future child labour.

The ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) has activities in almost 90 countries worldwide. It works at the policy level, supporting development of legislative and policy frameworks to tackle child labour, as well as through programmes aimed at preventing and withdrawing children from child labour, and has developed a Global Action Plan to eliminate its worst forms – hazardous work, commercial sexual exploitation, trafficking and all forms of slavery – by 2016.

In Central Asia, including Tajikistan, IPEC implements a project “Combating Child Labour – Commitment becomes Action”. The project has a two-level approach: At the sub-regional level it organizes networking and information sharing in order to build capacity to fight child labour in the Central Asian region. At the country level the project helps national stakeholders formulate and implement policies to facilitate prevention, protection, withdrawal, rehabilitation and reintegration of children engaged in the worst forms of child labour.

“The project also assists in increasing employability and creating decent work opportunities for the target families, thus providing viable alternatives to child labour. We aim to prevent families like Sharofat’s from leaving their home country and dooming their children to child labour ”, explains Undraa Suren, the project’s chief technical advisor.

Minette Rimando, ILO press officer in Manila, wrote this report for ILO Online.

MANILA (ILO Online) – Together with other children, Aiza stands in the mercury-laden water, shovelling mud or bending over a large pan in search of a tiny speck of gold. She earns 20 pesos or half a dollar for a small bit of gold the size of a grain of rice.

Aiza learned to search for gold from her mother and her 6-year old sister is now learning from her. She had to quit school at an early age to contribute to the family income and provide for her mother’s medical needs.

The search for gold sent many children away from home, school and play to the dangers of the mines.

“Our bodies ache, but we have to go on. I was able to reach up to fifth grade only. I don’t want my children to be like me. I want them to finish school and find a job they want but I don’t have money for their education,” says Aiza’s mother (Note 1).

Rodel was luckier than Aiza, maybe because he is a boy. A new ILO report prepared for the World Day Against Child Labour 2009 finds that the danger of girls being forced into child labour is linked to evidence that in many countries families give preference to boys when making decisions on the education of their children.

Rodel received his college diploma last month. But looking back to his past as a child labourer in small scale mining when he was 10, the dark mining tunnel still scares him today.

“I was so tired, so weak since I had to work at night and go to school the next day”, remembers Rodel. He reached a point of working full time when his parents could not afford to send him to school anymore. Every day, Rodel had to work for 8-12 hours or longer to earn a maximum of US$1-2 a day.

His most dangerous experience turned out to be a real eye-opener when his father used dynamite to blast rocks inside the tunnel.

“I had to run and get out but it was too dark. All of a sudden, I tumbled and fell about 10 feet. I felt so miserable, and then I realized that I didn’t like what I was doing. I just wanted to go back to school”, recalls Rodel.

A Survey on Children conducted by the National Statistics Office of the Philippines in 2001 revealed a total of 4 million working children aged 5-17 years in the Philippines, of which 2.4 million were in dangerous work. Over 18,000 children are engaged in mining and quarrying. Half of them are 10 to 14 years old.

Like Aiza and Rodel, most of these children work in small scale mining, which use low technology methods and do not follow safety standards. Children in mining often complain of body pains due to heavy loads. They are exposed to dangers of landslides and falling rocks. Moreover, child labourers cannot shield themselves from large amounts of dust and mercury-based chemicals in mining sites which can cause serious brain damage.

A health assessment of the Occupational Safety and Health Center and the ILO involving 80-100 children in a small scale mining area revealed that some children were contaminated with mercury.

Their growth was stunted and they do poorly in school. They developed skin diseases, cough, colds and fever. Often, they quit school to work all day in small scale mining.

“The International Labour Organization and its partners stand for a world where no girls or boys are forced to work at the cost of dropping out of school as young as 5 years old and risking their health or even their lives,” says Linda Wirth, Director of the ILO Subregional Office for South-East Asia and the Pacific.

“Working children like Aiza and Rodel may earn 40 or 50 pesos (US$1) a day and it may be enough to keep a family from falling apart. Still, a few pesos cannot change their world in the way an education can,” says Wirth.

From being a child labourer, Rodel became a child advocate. At 14 years old, Rodel was chosen as child advocate after joining the Summer Youth Camp of the ILO International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) and the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM).

He started out representing his town and province until he was elected as President of all child advocates in the entire Bicol region. “Our number one advocacy was to end child labour in the Philippines. We joined the first Global March against Child Labour. We marched on the streets with our banners on Let’s Work

Together against Child Labour,” recalls Rodel. The Philippines was the first country to start the Global March against Child Labour in 1998, bringing together both government and non-government organizations, trade unions, teachers, families, child advocates and individuals in the fight against child labour. After the Global March, Rodel had the chance to go back to school. “I received a full scholarship from Senator Loren Legarda through the endorsement of ILO IPEC,” he says.

Having left the dark tunnel of the mineshaft, 25-year old Rodel can now see a brighter future ahead. But he remembers Aiza and the other child labourers.

“After graduation, I want to find a decent job …but I also want to help other children to get out of child labour. If we allow children to work, then they will remain uneducated. If child labourers do not get a chance to return to school, then nothing will happen in this country because they are our future.” concludes Rodel.

“With rising poverty and inequality, and funding for schools under pressure in developing and transition countries in particular, the economic crisis is likely to add even more children to the 200 million who are already at work instead of getting a proper education. This is a tragic scenario just ten years since the ILO adopted Convention 182 on eliminating the worst forms of child labour,” said ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder.

The ITUC has launched a new video spot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zZXVq7elLw to highlight the problem and press governments to tackle the exploitation of children more effectively, both through funding quality education and enforcing labour law.

Tens of millions of adults are losing their jobs due to the crisis, putting family incomes under huge pressure and making it even more difficult for poorer families to cover the costs of education.

“The consequences of child labour, often devastating for the children concerned, are also felt in terms of economic and social development in the longer term. Countries which do not ensure universal education will not have the broad base of skills and knowledge required for solid economic foundations for the future,” Ryder added.

The ITUC and its Global Unions partners have also pointed to major deficiencies in the global response to the crisis for the poorest countries. While the G20 governments agreed to make special funding available at their London Summit in April, not enough money is available to support the poorest countries in particular. On top of this the International Monetary Fund, which is the main vehicle chosen by the G20 to deliver the funding, is putting similar conditions on its lending as in the past, despite G20 pledges of reform. This means that public spending on education, as well as other key areas, risks being limited or even cut at a time when it is most needed.

To see the new ITUC video spot on child labour, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zZXVq7elLw

To see the ITUC special web pages on the crisis,
http://www.ituc-csi.org/spip.php?rubrique262

Other useful links:

http://www.ei-ie.org/en/news/show.php?id=1042&theme=childlabour&country=global

http://www.global-unions.org

http://www.ilo.org/ipec/lang–en/index.htm

http://www.globalmarch.org/

http://www.stopchildlabour.net/

The ITUC represents 170 million workers in 312 affiliated national organisations from 157 countries. http://www.ituc-csi.org http://www.youtube.com/ITUCCSI

For more information, please contact the ITUC Press Department on: +32 2 224 0204 or +32 476 621 018

“We have to fight child labor because it is the worst proof of poverty,” Secretary Roque said. “It is unkind to our children. We have been closing companies and shops that violate our Child Labor Laws.”

And Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) also has continuing programs—like the Sagip Batang Manggagawa (SBM), or Rescue Child Workers, and Kabuhayan para sa Magulang ng Batang Mang-gagawa (Kasama)—to improve the lives of families so that they need not make the children work.

The educational program has yielded good results. There has been a decline by several thousands of children laborers since the project was launched in 2008.

Secretary Roque signed an agreement with the World Vision Development Foundation (WDF) and the Christian Children’s Fund (CCF) on June 13, 2008, to celebrate World Day Against Child Labor (WDACL), by having the two foundations help the DOLE implement a project that gives child workers access to educational opportunities.

The project is named ABK2 (Pag-aaral ng mga Bata Para sa Kina-bukasan) and TEACh (Take Every Action for Children). It has been carried out with grants from the United States Department of Labor.

It was launched at the DOLE in Intramuros, Manila, in February 2008, with US Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenney in attendance.

Secretary Roque stresses that “Education is the right response to child labor.” This underscores the importance of education as a major strategy in preventing and eliminating child labor.

He said that child workers often find themselves forced to drop out of school in favor of working in order to supplement family income or simply support themselves.

The project is being implemented in areas where the incidence of child labor is high, such as the National Capital Region, Bulacan, Camarines Norte, Iloilo, Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, Cebu, Leyte, Davao del Sur, and Compostela Valley.

“Educating the children while providing their parents with income sources are the long-term solutions seen to break the bondage of poverty that ties child workers and their families to the cycle of child labor,” the DOLE chief said.

Hazardous situations

“When a child works under hazardous situations like in construction and prostitution, that is child labor,” said Rica Bernardes, head of the Bureau of Women and Young Workers of the DOLE.

Most child workers need to work for their families because of poverty, Bernardes said, proving indeed that the root cause of child labor is the deprivation that more than 80 percent of Filipinos are going through.

“Child labor is relatively connected to poverty,” she pointed out. “The more poverty increases, the higher the number of child laborers. It is a serious problem and it is also the worst effect of poverty.”

“Child workers are, of course, cheaper labor . . . but the long hours they have to work to do jobs supposedly adults should be doing is exploitative.”

She said domestic work is considered the worst form of child labor because house helpers below 18 years old have to work for more than 40 hours a week when the law specifically says child workers should not be working from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.

“So far this year, we have closed down 15 establishments found violating the anti-child labor act,” Bernardes told The Manila Times, adding that these are mostly nightclubs and bars where children are forced to work to help their families.

“We have very good laws but the problem lies in the implementation. We have plenty of programs but the advocacy is also lacking,” she lamented.

Banned jobs

Child labor is defined as the employment of children under legal age in hazardous and morally demeaning situations like prostitution; domestic work; production of illegal drugs and biological agents such as bacteria and fungi; pornographic performance; handling of explosives and pyrotechnic products; and work that requires a child to handle large and heavy machinery; work underwater or dangerous heights; and anything that exposes a child to physical danger and an unhealthy environment.

Child labor is divided into two categories. One is light work where children (ages five to 15 years old) are employed in right-paying jobs that only requires them to work eight hours a day with corresponding benefits and under parental consent. Meanwhile, those that require children to work for more than 40 hours a week and under dangerous situations violate the anti-child labor act.

Under Republic Act 9231, or the Anti-Child Labor Law, the wages, salaries and earnings of the working child “belong to him / her in ownership and shall be set aside primarily for his / her support, education or skills acquisition and secondarily to the collective needs of the family.”

It also provides that not more than 20 percent of the child’s income may be used for the collective needs of the family.

The law against child labor provides for the elimination of the worst forms of child labor and provides “stronger protection for the working child.”

A child under 15 years of age shall not be employed except if the child works under the sole responsibility of his/her parents. The child is also entitled to an elementary and high school education even when working in public entertainment, such as cinema, theater, radio, television or other forms of media.

Even the setting up of trust funds or preserving a part of the child worker’s salary is clearly required: the parent or legal guardian of a working child under 18 years of age shall set up a trust fund for at least 30 percent of the earnings of the child, whose wages and salaries from work and other income amount to at least P200,000 annually.

Upon reaching the age of majority, the child would have full control of the trust fund.

The law also prohibits children to appear in advertisements promoting (directly or indirectly) alcoholic beverages, intoxicating drinks, tobacco and its byproducts, gambling or any form of violence or pornography.

Although the country’s existing laws on child labor provide for the protection of almost all aspects of the working child’s life, the problem is in its implementation, Bernardes pointed out.

DOLE programs

To combat the effect of poverty on children and their families, which leads to child employment, DOLE started the Sagip Batang Mang-gagawa (SBM) program and the Kabuhayan para sa Magulang ng Batang Manggagawa (Kasama).

SBM, started in the 1990s, responds quickly to reported cases of child labor. It employs an inter-agency quick action team for detecting, monitoring and rescuing child laborers in hazardous and exploitative working situations.

Together with the departments of health, social welfare, local government, justice, the National Bureau of Investigation and the Commission on Human Rights, among others, DOLE implements the SBM program to establish community-based mechanisms, quick action teams, provide physical and psychological services and technical assistance in administrative cases, conduct rescue operations and facilitate the safe return of rescued child laborers to their families.

“Basically, we act on reports. And we also have inspection frameworks—technical assistance, self-assessment and inspectionables,” Bernardes said.

The program employs data gathering validation of cases, monitoring of establishments prone to child labor violations, inspection, search and rescue and post-rescue operations.

The Kasama, which only started last year, is a livelihood project for families of child laborers aimed to contribute to the prevention and elimination of child labor by providing families of child laborers access to decent livelihood opportunities for enhanced income.

Kasama hopes to benefit parents and guardians of child laborers as well as their elder siblings, who, are already of employable age.

DOLE partnered with non-government organizations, local governments, cooperatives, trade and workers’ groups, employer organizations, faith-based organizations and the academe.

Kasama programs include the processing of food and other consumer products, production of herbal drugs, organic fertilizer and other agriculture-based products, and handicraft and souvenirs.

DOLE also offers educational assistance for child laborers like Project Angel Tree, which offers scholarships for child laborers. And it established mobile schools to make education more accessible for the working child.

“These programs are supported by the United Nations Children’s Fund and the International Labor Organization,” Bernaldes said. –Fred Rosario, Times Columnist and Former Labor Attaché and Bernice Camille V. Bauzon, Reporter, Manila Times

Child prostitution takes many appearances, from stripping and indecent dance; massage; guest relations; mobile sex trade in streets and malls; on board docked ships or boats; and outright sex slavery in sex dens.

Nobody really knows how many Filipino children are in the sex trade, but they could number up to 100,000, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Most are girls, but the number of boy prostitutes is increasing.

Many are recruited from the provinces, their appeal is the “freshness” factor.

These children are exposed to the AIDS virus and sexually transmitted diseases, while many risk physical violence and failing health from long and unholy work hours.

They suffer from harmful psychological stresses, development of distorted values, economic exploitation, lack of love and affection, breakdown of family ties, loss of self-worth and endangered lives if they decide to quit.

Shocking it may be but there is more to child prostitution than meets the eye. It is just one facet of the horrors daily served to children working in what the ILO calls the worst form of labor, be it on the street or in the sea.

Children fishers

Loneliness at sea and dangerous daily work during fishing months take a heavy psychological toll on more than 200,000 Filipino children 5 to 17 years old who are fisherboys.

A typical day lasts up to 15 hours. And because they do not use protective gear, they suffer from decompression symptoms, harsh weather, cuts, bruises, skin diseases, sore eyes, body burns, hearing impairment and paralysis.

Many of the child fishers are exposed to physical, chemical and biological hazards—and maltreatment at the hands of cruel masters.

Child ‘sacadas’

Then there are child sacadas in plantations. These have the highest number of child laborers numbering over two million. According to the National Statistics Office (NSO), 1.4 million are below 15 years old and seven out of 10 are boys.

They clear and prepare land and do the weeding, harvesting, applying fertilizers and hauling of produce.

They handle poisonous chemicals and motorized equipment without the proper training and without protective gear. These children are exposed to brutal weather and highly toxic pesticides.

No wonder, they suffer from malnutrition, retarded physical development, skin diseases, wounds, bruises, dehydration, headaches, fever and respiratory problems.

Children miners

Over 18,000 children are also in mining and quarrying. Half of them are 10 to 14 years old.

Most are in small mines—working long hours from extraction to processing that use low-tech methods that don’t follow safety standards. Cave-ins, landslides and falling rocks are part of the job description.

Body pains and exhaustion are the least of their worries. They are exposed to large amounts of dust and mercury-based chemical that cause brain damage. And for carrying excessively heavy loads, their growth is stunted.

Children domestics

Closer to home, there are over 230,000 minors working as household helpers, eight out of 10 of them girls, according to the NSO.

“The monotony of their work deprives them of the opportunity to learn skills that would make them grow into productive adults,” the ILO says.

On call 24/7, they normally gave a 15-hour work day. Day offs, if granted at all, are about once a month. All for an average measly sum of P800 a month, they risk verbal, physical and even sexual abuse.

“Child domestic workers have virtually no freedom of movement, as they are able to venture beyond the gate only when sent out on errands,” the ILO says.

“Some 2.4 million of these children labor under some of the most risky and inhumane conditions just to survive another day or get through another meal,” the ILO points out.

“These working conditions violate children and damage their physical, mental, spiritual and psychosocial growth and development to such an extreme that they end up injured or, worse, dead.”

This is the world of four million Filipino child workers. –International Labor Organization

Theirs is a shared story: Born into poverty, robbed of their childhoods, sold for sex.

Grace was 13 and had high hopes of leaving the hard life in Northern Samar when she quit high school to work as a maid in the big city, just like her mother. But the domestic work in Manila promised by recruiters turned out to be sex work in the red light district of Angeles City, Pampanga.

“I never imagined I would land in this kind of job, but finding myself trapped and without any money, I started working right away,” she says.

After three years of waiting on tables and dancing in bars, Grace made the transition from “entertainment” to “sex work”.

Earning the bar fine ruled Grace’s daily life that began at 5 p.m. and ended at 3 a.m. Numbed by drugs and alcohol, she would service as many as 10 men in a single night.

Then there is Marilyn who relates how she was paid P10,000 for her virginity.

“I did get the P10,000, but learned later that he paid P20,000. I don’t know what happened to the rest of the money,” she says. “They taught me to take shabu to overcome my shyness. When I first arrived at the bar, I used to take ecstasy and a sleeping pill, downed with beer.”

Not all children are trafficked from the provinces to Manila. Children are also trafficked from cities to provinces.

Tessa, then 17, was a fresh high school graduate from Montalban, Rizal, when she was brought to a strip show in Cebu City and issued work documents that said she was older than she really was.

“There was no mention of dancing or bringing in bar fines. We were only informed that we would be entertaining foreigners, making lots of money, and being given an allowance,” she recalls.

But the terms of payment make sure the girls are always financially enslaved to their employers. For example, a girl keeps only P500 from the P1,500 bar fine; the rest is split between the manager and the bar.

Apart from basic living expenses, the girls shoulder the cost of condoms, which customers may or may not use. Even payment for fake birth certificates, identification cards and other documents needed to secure three-month hygiene passes are deducted from the girls’ salaries.

“From the nightclub, we would go to the house where they kept us. Some girls would quarrel over the limited food. Second helpings were not allowed,” Mylene says.

Girls deemed too plump to attract customers ate even less, with only one meal allowed them daily. Employers also forced them to do various household chores—from doing the laundry to cleaning floors, in between nightly jobs at the club.

Like prisoners

“We would get some sleep, and when we awake, we have to do it all over again,” says Mylene. “We told them we can’t dance anymore; we want to go home. At times, I wanted to end my life, as I felt trapped there forever. We never went out. We were like prisoners. We weren’t free.”

Also in her Cebu City brothel was Liza, 19, who felt the same way as Mylene and decided she could take no more of the abuse.

While waiting for a chance to earn a little more money so she could go home, Liza learned about the End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes or ECPAT.INVUE.

“I went to ECPAT and they interviewed me,” she says. “They asked me if I knew anyone who needed help and wanted to go home to Manila. And then I faced a judge. I told him about the girls being sold, maltreated. It’s like they’ve raped and killed all the girls, about our earnings that they pocketed.

“Then I asked the girls if they wanted to escape, and they said yes. So I told them, let’s do it. The day of the raid, I was on board a plane back to Manila.”

Forty-three girls were rescued and later charges were filed against their recruiters. In such rescue operations, various government agencies come into action.

The biggest role is that of the Philippine National Police, the primary agency tasked to do surveillance, investigation and arrest.

Collaborating together, the labor, health and social welfare departments conduct child-sensitive rescue operations, followed by medical evaluation, protective custody, psychosocial services and reintegration.

The Department of Tourism cancels the accreditation and blacklists establishments that promote prostitution.

All these are part of the Plan of Action Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation, coordinated by the Council for the Welfare of Children, the lead government agency for the protection, welfare and development of children.

These efforts have helped child prostitutes find the strength to speak up, claim their rights, and start new lives.

Since the raid and rescue, Liza has been appearing as principal witness in the trial of her abusers, unfazed by the presence of her captors, and clearly empowered by the key role she played in securing the warrant of arrest for the recruiters.

She is also back to school, together with Tessa, learning culinary skills at a government vocational training institution.

Through a social worker in Angeles City, Grace was also fortunate enough to get in touch with the Third World Movement Against the Exploitation of Women.

After seven years in sexual slavery, Grace has found refuge at this NGO’s Nazareth Growth Home, a halfway house set up for women who opt out of sex work.

Tessa, Liza and Grace. Three faces among the 4 million Filipino child workers, of whom around 60,000 to 100,000 are in prostitution. –Source ILO

Spearheaded by the International Labor Organization (ILO), there is an encouraging reduction in child labor, especially its worst forms.

If the current trends continue, the ILO says, child labor in its worst forms may be eliminated within the next decade.

In 2006, the number of child laborers worldwide fell to 28 million, fewer than in 2002.

The sharpest decline is in hazardous work by children between the ages of 5 and 14.

The ILO’s International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC), started in 1992, is operational in 86 countries with an annual expenditure of over $70 million.

It is the largest program of its kind anywhere in the world and the biggest single operation program of the ILO.

Through local authorities, IPEC reaches children in the underground economy and small and medium businesses that provide the bulk of employment.

It promotes getting children out of work and into school. Around 5 million children have benefited from IPEC.

The ILO estimates the cost of eliminating child labor at $760 billion over a 20-year period. The benefit in terms of better education and health: over US$4 trillion, or a net benefit of nearly 6 to 1.– Source ILO