DOLE to start P9-B campaign vs child labor

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is set to start this year a P9-billion campaign to eradicate child labor in the country.

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz yesterday said the government will mount a four-year converge program dubbed “HELP ME.”

Baldoz said HELP stands for health, education, livelihood and prevention while ME is for monitoring and evaluation.

Through the program, Baldoz said the government hopes to save about 893,000 children from hazardous work.

“HELP ME is a community-based approach against child labor and has a proposed budget of P9 billion to be implemented from 2013 to 2016,” the DOLE chief said.

According to Baldoz, the program is expected to contribute greatly to the realization of the country’s Millennium Development Goal of eradicating poverty through decent work.

She added that by 2016, at least 75 percent of the 2.9 million child workers in the country will be freed from the bondage of child labor.

Baldoz said HELP ME was conceived by the Cabinet’s Human Development and Poverty Reduction Cluster with the DOLE and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) as lead agencies.

She said the proposed P9-billion budget would augment existing programs and services in health support for children’s growth, education support such as transportation allowance, school uniforms and supplies, meal allowance, livelihood for parents of child workers, and child labor prevention and protection as well as the prosecution of child labor offenders.

Baldoz said DOLE is also leading other government agencies and private sector partners in conducting nationwide consultative workshops this year.

She said the government has identified a total of 15,568 barangays as targets for the implementation of the convergence program.

The 15,568 barangays are classified into three levels, with the first one called “new frontier” or barangays that have child workers in hazardous situations and where initiatives have not yet been undertaken.

There are 9,435 barangays in this level and these are in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Regions 1 to 5, 7 to 9, 12, and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Baldoz said there are 5,545 barangays in the second level, or barangays where there is presence of child laborers in hazardous situations and where interventions are continuing.

The third level is called “low-hanging fruits” or barangays where child labor issues have been addressed, various stakeholders have been mobilized for advocacy and service delivery, local institutions have been established, and partnerships among stakeholders have been forged.

There are 588 barangays in the third level in Regions 1, 3 to 5, 8 to10 and the National Capital Region. In these areas, child labor initiatives need to be sustained and continuously monitored under the barangay-based convergence program, according to Baldoz.

Under the program, DOLE will work with the DSWD, which will require beneficiaries of the government’s conditional cash transfer (CCT) or Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino program not to compel their children to engage in child labor.

“As a key ally of DOLE, the DSWD is finalizing its modified CCT program and will prioritize for enrollment families with child laborers or families with children at risk of becoming child laborers. This means many Filipino families will have the chance to be part of the CCT program in the future,” Baldoz said.

Based on a survey conducted by the National Statistics Office in October 2011, there are 5.492 million working children aged 5 to 17. Of this number, 2.993 million or 54.5 percent are exposed to hazardous working conditions.