Six minors aged 12 to 16 years old were rescued from child labor in Las Piñas City, where a junk shop operator made them dismantle electronic components that exposed them to toxic substances like lead and mercury, the Department of Labor and Employment reported on Wednesday.
The provincial government of Northern Samar has become the first provincial government unit in the country to enact a local anti-child labor ordinance, complete with an initial P1-million funding for its implementation, according to the Department of Labor and Employment.
Labor and social welfare authorities expressed alarm over the increasing number of child laborers in Bicol after a study showed that an estimated 300,000 children in the region are engaged in hazardous work, an official of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said Thursday.
Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz on Friday launched in Sagada, Mt. Province, an antichild labor crusade among upland farming communities as the government pushes programs aimed at reducing child labor in the Philippines before 2015.
What used to be a community of child laborers in the firecracker industry here is now a model village, free of children covered with powdered chemicals and working in shacks many here describe as “firecracker factories.”
As the nation mourns the death of well-loved Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, the Department of Labor and Employment said it has lost one of its “greatest generals” in the fight against child labor and human trafficking in the country.
Labor officials rescued three child laborers from a construction site in Negros Occidental recently. In a report to Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz, DOLE Region 6 Director Ponciano Ligutom Jr. said the minors, aged 16-17 years old, were found working at an excavation site along the highway at Brgy. Calumangan, Bago City.
After years working on sugarcane farms in Iloilo, several child laborers are going back to school. Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said the government has provided 52 parents in San Enrique, Iloilo, with almost P400,000 in livelihood grants so they won’t have to send their children to work in sugar fields anymore.
TWO Cebu barangays have been included in the labor department’s list of child labor free barangays in the country.
Pupils in villages near a gold-rich mountain in Maitum, Sarangani, skip classes on Fridays to attend to what they deem is a more important task – hauling soil and stones from mine tunnels.
The president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) on Sunday urged the government to use the funds allocated for contraceptives to solve the high incidence of child labor in the country.
There are 3 million child laborers toiling in the Philippines and almost all of them are working in hazardous conditions, according to a survey financed by the International Labor Organization (ILO).
The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in Northern Mindanao supported a report that child labor prevails in sugarcane plantations in Bukidnon.
