Dumaguete City is a child-friendly city. However, kids like this boy are not in school but working on the city's streets for their families' survival. (Sun.Star Dumaguete Photo)

In the very few times that his father comes home, he would scream at his children if he could not have food or money. Worse, he'd hurt any of the children he could lay hands on. None of the children has been brave enough to report the abuse to the police.

"Dondon is really a great help to us. Had it not been for him, we would not have anything to eat, to buy medicines when anyone gets sick. I am thankful that he is not into smoking or rugby sniffing," Dondon's mother, a frail and thin woman, said when interviewed in their run-down shanty.

Dondon is only one of the army of children eking out a living in this City of Gentle People that prides itself as a child-friendly city.

There is John (not his real name), a 12-year-old boy from the town of Zamboanguita, Negros Oriental. He has six other younger siblings. He does not go to school, but works to have food on the table for the family.

"Tatay is always drunk...he thrashes me whenever he sees me around. He shouts at us, calling us useless and more mouths to feed," John said.

Because he could no longer bear the abuses, he left home. John learned to live on his own as a parking motorcycle attendant of a fast food chain in the city's commercial district.

His average income is P15 per day. He considers himself lucky if he earned P30 a day.

Asked if he had plans to return home, he quickly replied, "No, I don't want to get bruised again. I'll go back home in due time."

Child protection

Provincial social welfare officer Alicia Legarde blames poverty as one factor that forces parents to allow their children to work at a young age.

"There is no law penalizing parents for the exploitation of a child...they tolerate child labor, and it's a sad fact," Legarde said. "No parents would ever want to harm their children. But because of survival, a parent can't be blamed for thinking of their children as an extension of their manpower, like the sakadas beating up the pakyaw system in sugar cane harvesting."

International Labor Organization (ILO) figures show the Southern Tagalog region topping the list of regions with high percentage of working children or 461,000 children at work.

Central Visayas with 388,000 children working is next in the list followed closely by Eastern Visayas at 349,000 and Western Visayas. The statistics show that the Visayas area has the most number of abused children in terms of child labor.

An ILO survey also found that of the 1.5 million children receiving pay, 65 percent earn an average of less than P500 a week and 83 percent give their earnings to their parents.

"These surveys only show how useful the children could be in increasing the family's income. No wonder parents allow their children to work despite the hazards," Lilian Mondarte, labor employment officer said.

Some of the worst forms of child labor are child prostitution, small-scale mining and quarrying, heavy domestic labor, pyrotechnics, sugar cane plantations, and deep-sea fishing.

To the national government, poverty is considered the root of child labor and promoting universal basic education could eliminate it.

Surveys say otherwise. Most parents believe government priority must be on promoting livelihood programs for the family. Education, to them, must come second.

"They continue to educate us on the risks of allowing child labor. But after the seminar and information dissemination, what do we get? We cannot eat knowledge...we need food. We need decent livelihood with reasonable salary so we could not be tempted to send back our children into risky work," one mother commented.

(December 8, 2005 issue)
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