DHAKA: A group of Bangladeshi children who worked as camel jockeys in the United Arab Emirates will get more than $50,000 in compensation from the Gulf state, an official said Thursday.

The 29 children were among 200 repatriated three years ago when the UAE signed an agreement with the UN children’s fund Unicef to outlaw the practice of children riding in camel races.

The UAE banned child jockeys in 1993 although abuses remained widespread until the 2005 agreement.

Magistrate Abul Bashar Mohammad Amiruddin told Agence France-Presse the children were from the Gazipur district, near the capital Dhaka, and a UAE representative had visited this week to announce the compensation package.

“The UAE official said the 29 children, who were aged between five and 18 when they came back to Bangladesh, will get between $1,200 and $3,000 each and the total will be $52,700,” Amiruddin said.

Some of the children were trafficked from Bangladesh, others were sent there to earn money for their families back home and others were used as underage jockeys to earn money for families living in the UAE.

Poverty and lack of jobs in Bangladesh, where 40 percent of the population lives on less than a dollar a day, drives millions abroad each year to send money back to their families.

Poor parents are vulnerable to traffickers who prey on their desperation by making false promises of good jobs abroad for their children.

– AFP

President Gloria Arroyo has the power, strength and ability to address one of the most serious challenges of her presidency—the significant curtailment of human trafficking and sex slavery in the Philippines.

Both can be shut down if there were the political will and commitment to do so. As yet these are absent.

Not long ago with the Preda child rescue team I was searching for a young girl trafficked into the sex business. In a public park the pimps offered to text a trafficker and women and children would be delivered. We found trafficked 13-year-olds in a provincial sex bar for sale. They mysteriously disappeared just before the police arrived—a tip-off.

In Manila, Cebu and Angeles City the big bars have hundreds of youth for sale to foreign sex tourists all apparently permitted by the local politicians and all acting with impunity.

Protecting the most vulnerable is the duty and purpose of government. The challenge facing this powerful woman president and her government is to rise above the criminal syndicates that corrupt and cripple the police and government officials and crush the sex mafia.

The President may indeed have many fine achievements but victory over the pimps and pedophiles, sex tourists and traffickers of persons is not among them. But we live and work on in hope.

The Church and civil society are ready to help protect and empower the rescued teenage victims so they can testify against their traffickers and abusers. But few are rescued and without witnesses there are no convictions. The good and honest people in government are not in high enough positions to act against the entrenched sex industry.

The President must act. Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan has shown determination and commitment to investigate the suspected foreign abusers and traffickers.

But he needs to stop his confidential letters and files being given to suspects, which undermine his investigations.

According to the Trafficking of Persons report of the US State Department, there is rampant trafficking of persons from the Philippines to other countries for sexual enslavement but also in the Philippines itself. Convictions are much too few. It says: “However, the [Philippine] government demonstrated weak efforts to prosecute trafficking cases and convict trafficking offenders.”

The President has much to do and we are ready and waiting to help.

The recruiter of the 17-year-old housemaid and the girl Friday of former actress Princess Revilla were charged with physical injury, child labor and child abuse yesterday before the Pasig City prosecutor’s office.

Volunteer lawyers Yvonne Gaddi Festejo and Irene Alogoc said recruiter Ruth Bajas and Revilla’s assistant, Ethel Avenido face the same charges earlier filed against Revilla.

Revilla (Rebecca Bautista-Ocampo in real life) failed to appear before the Pasig court yesterday. Her lawyer asked the court for a five-day extension to file her counter-affidavit on the case.

This developed as lawyer Cirilo Avila, representing the victim’s mother, asked the court to transfer custody of the housemaid from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to the victim’s parents.

Avila said they are also asking the court to disallow the DSWD and the housemaid’s volunteer lawyers from representing her because they are not authorized.

The housemaid’s lawyers earlier questioned the sudden appearance of the victim’s mother, who flew in from Samar, apparently to try to convince her daughter to withdraw the charges against Revilla.

Alogoc strongly believes influential people are pressuring the lawyers and DSWD officials protecting the victim.

“This battle is against a prominent family, which makes it difficult for the victim and us. We need all the support we can get. We hope that this case will not have the same fate as the previous cases filed against Revilla, where the maids did not appear on the scheduled hearings for unknown reasons,” Alogoc said.

She also clarified that during a preliminary investigation hearing before the office of prosecutor Dennis Pastrana last July 14, the mother grabbed the victim by the neck, shouting at her to withdraw the case against Revilla and just go home to Samar.

The victim, however, shouted back that she will pursue the case and that she refuses to go home until the case is finished.

The housemaid’s mother and cousin claimed they were treated like criminals during the hearing, but Alogoc said the two women started the commotion when they tried to wrest the victim away from the social workers.

Alogoc said someone must be instructing the two women to cause disturbances during the hearing and make the DSWD workers appear to be the aggressors.

– Non Alquitran

THE lawyers of the 17-year-old housemaid who was beaten up by actress Princess Revilla, sister of Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla, included the recruiter and the actress’ girl Friday in the charged sheet.

This after volunteer lawyers Yvonne Gaddi Festejo and Irene Alogoc filed charges against Ruth Bajas, recruiter of the housemaid and Ethel Avenido, the assistant of Princess, before the Pasig City Prosecutor’s Office late afternoon yesterday.

The lawyers said charges of violation of Republic Act 7610 (Child Abuse), and Republic Act 9231 (Child Labor), and physical injury charges were also filed against the two.

The same charges were already filed against Princess.

Meanwhile, Princess failed to appear before the Pasig court yesterday as her lawyer represented her and asked the court for a five-day extension to file her counter-affidavit.

On the other hand, the mother of the housemaid who was accompanied by her lawyer Atty. Cirilo Avila also appeared before the prosecutor’s office to file manifestation in intervention asking the court to transfer the custody of the child to her mother.

Avila, said they are asking the court to disallow and not authorized the DSWD and the victim’s lawyers to represent the housemaid due to an alleged unauthorized representation.

The earlier questioned the sudden appearance of the victim’s mother apparently to convince her daughter to withdraw the charges against the actress.

Atty. Alogoc, also believed that there are influential people who want to get their hands on this case and are giving too much pressure on the lawyers and the officials of the DSWD who are now protecting the victim.

“This battle is against a prominent family, which makes it difficult for the victim and us. We need all the support we can get. We hope that this case will not have the same fate as the previous cases filed against Revilla, where the maids did not appear on the scheduled hearings for unknown reason,” Atty. Alogoc said.

Alogoc was reacting to the incident that happened last July 14, 2008 during the preliminary investigation of the criminal cases filed against Revilla before the office of Piscal Dennis Pastrana at the 7th floor of Pasig City hall of Justice.

Alogoc said that the victim’s mother Herminia Arota, 56, suddenly appeared and rushed to her side and grabbed the victim with two arms by the neck.

“Huwag mo ng ituloy ang kaso laban kay Princess. Umuwi na tayo ng Samar,” the mother reportedly shouted in Waray to her daughter.

However, the victim also shouted in Waray saying: “itutuloy ko ang kaso hindi ako uuwi ng Samar hangga’t hindi tapos ang kaso.”

Alogoc said that the mother even prevented her daughter to take her oath on the supplemental complaint as she prevented her from standing up and repeatedly saying to withdraw the case against Revilla.

Contrary to the claim of the mother and her niece Mary Bacayo,31 that they were treated as criminals when they tried to talk with the victim, the lawyer disclosed that it was the mother and Bacayo who started the commotion when they tried to grabbed the victim from the DSWD possession.

The lawyer said that they doubted that someone is instructing the mother and Bacayo to cause disturbances during the hearing and make the DSWD appear as aggressors.

Atty. Alogoc was also skeptical where the victim’s relatives took their money in going to Manila as they all know that the victim was coming from a poor family.

However, Atty. Avila explained that a non-government group was financially supporting the victim as he was also not asking for any fee from the victim’s mother.

ALTHOUGH a law prohibits the employment of persons below 15 years old, this poverty stricken nation of more than 90 million people is teeming with child workers.

Due to grinding poverty, which has been forcing more and more to seek employment abroad, parents encourage their children to stop going to school and just look for jobs.

And it is certainly sickening to note that some of these minors are engaged in hazardous work and, in some instances, even commit heinous crimes. Allowing children to be exploited and abused is unconscionable.

Thus, we support the view of a group of legislators, including Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez, that if we are to eradicate child labor, the government must first address the problem of widespread poverty in the country.

“These minors need to enjoy their childhood… develop mentally and physically under the care of their parents,” said Romualdez, a banker, educator, and lawyer who champions the cause of the poor, the sick, the elderly, and the youth.

The freshman solon from Leyte called on the Department of Labor and Employment to go after fireworks factories in Bulacan that continue to employ the services of minors.

Sharing Romualdez’ sentiments are An Waray Rep. Florencio Noel, Taguig-Pateros Rep. Lani Cayetano, and Rep. Joel Villanueva of the Citizens Battle Against Corruption.

Despite the fact that the country is a signatory to many international laws and conventions on child labor, there are still unscrupulous employers who capitalize on the children’s docility and illiteracy to make them do dehumanizing and hazardous work on starvation pay.

Villanueva said this systematic exploitation renders children physically and mentally impaired.

We concede that poor families have no choice but to require their kids to work to enable them to survive today’s high cost of living.

But the government will court public disenchantment and unpopularity if it ignores the plight of the country’s child workers.

It’s time to intensify the nationwide campaign against child abuse and child exploitation.

Poverty has many faces. Hunger, out-of-school youth, illegal settlers. One of the most invidious however is making children work to help support their families.

It is the right of children to be nurtured, to go to school, to play, to be nourished and have fun and grow up and have a normal childhood. It is the duty of families, government and society at large to provide the wherewithal, resources and services for the children to have food and sustenance, education, recreation, safe environment—and all else needed to ensure their well-being.

The National Statistics Office estimates that there are 4 million child laborers in the country as of 2004, an 8-percent increase from 3.7 million in 1996. More than half are engaged in the worst forms of child labor, while around 30 percent, or 1.25 million of these working children are not attending school. Many of the children are compelled to work in crop plantations, mining, quarries and factories. These illegal and immoral practices are being openly done with the tacit knowledge of their parents and the shameful individuals and businesses which employ them.

The International Labor Organization says that the Philippines have a long history of legislation that protects the rights and welfare of children. The Labor Code of the Philippines, which was enacted into law in 1974, set the minimum age of employment at 15 years and prohibited the employment of persons below 18 years of age in hazardous undertakings. Presidential Decree No. 603 (The Child and Youth Welfare Code) allows the employment of children aged 16 years and below only if they perform light work, which is not harmful to their safety, health or normal development, and which is not prejudicial to their studies. Strict guidelines were laid down on their rates of pay, hours of work and other conditions of employment. An employment permit also has to be secured from the Department of Labor.

Following the spirit of the 1987 Constitution, national and local legislation have given priority to the protection of children from abuse and exploitation. There is the 1992 Republic Act No. 7610 (Special Protection of Children against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act). This was amended in 1994 thru Republic Act No. 7658 reaffirming the minimum age of employment to 15 years, and 18 years and above for hazardous work. Republic Act 7160 (The Local Government Code of 1991) includes provisions for the proper development and welfare of children at the basic political level, the barangay. It enjoins local officials to promote and support activities for the protection and total development of children, particularly those below seven years of age, and adopt measures to prevent and eradicate drug abuse, child abuse, and juvenile delinquency.

These are just some of the laws but in spite of them, child labor continues. A child advocacy group sums up this malaise effectively: “We regard the youth as the future movers of our country. They will inherit the pride and heritage which has been earned by the sweat, blood and tears of our ancestors. Thus, they must be entitled to the proper preparation to lead this country. And we firmly believe that in forcing these very children to give all of that up just to be able to put food on their families’ tables puts that same future in grave danger.”

“The government and society, in their own respectful way, are willing to aid in the solution to this problem. But it is a fact that it is not as simple as passing new laws but in the fortification of proper implementation. It is therefore imperative for all people of this nation to voice out this concern and to be willing to truly usher in the solution to this ever-growing plight.”

The author teaches at the De La Salle Professional Schools Ramon V. del Rosario Sr. Graduate School of Business. He acknowledges the inputs of two of his students in the above column. He welcomes comments at dennis.berino-@dlsps.edu.ph.