Cotabato City residents, students unite against child labor

COTABATO CITY —A group of villagers and social work students in Cotabato City underwent a two-day digital child labor data collection workshop in support of a foreign-assisted program preventing the employment of children as laborers and combatants.

The Community-based Child Labour Monitoring System Program orientation, held from October 15 to 16 and attended by 50 community leaders in Barangay Poblacion 9 and students of the AR Pacheco College, was facilitated by the International Labour Organization, the Ministry of Labor and Employment-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and the Cotabato City Social Welfare Office.

The ILO, an agency of the United Nations, and the office of BARMM’s labor minister, Muslimin Sema, have joint extensive anti-child labor projects in several towns in the autonomous region and in Cotabato City, which has 37 barangays.  

Child labor is prevalent in some areas in BARMM due to poverty and underdevelopment caused by decades of secessionist strife.

Sema told reporters on Thursday that he is thankful to the residents of Barangay Poblacion 9 for supporting the ILO and MoLE-BARMM’s digital child labor data collection thrusts in their communities.

“We are also very grateful to the Cotabato City government for helping us address child labor, which is a major concern for us in the Bangsamoro labor ministry,” Sema said.

There is a large garbage dumpsite in Barangay Poblacion 9 in Cotabato City where many out-of-school children collect recyclable wastes and gather anything they can sell to earn extra money for the needs of their marginalized families.

The MoLE-BARMM, the ILO and the Japanese government are cooperating in implementing an anti-child labor program in Barangay Poblacion 9.