THE Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in Dumaguete City, in partnership with a civic organization, is stepping up efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labor in the province.
DOLE has conducted a profiling of the vulnerable child workers in the municipalities that have recorded occurrence of child labor.
“Actually, naka profile mi og 1,575 child laborers and monitored sab mga 1,330 child laborers in the province,” said DOLE senior labor and employment officer Rubie Cempron.
(Actually, we have profiled 1,575 child laborers and monitored 1,330 of them in the province.)
In a Kapihan sa PIA forum, DOLE community facilitator Edelina Arbas said that from 2018 to 2022, DOLE conducted a child labor profiling, after which the department monitored the identified child laborers.
DOLE has released P5 million in livelihood assistance in the first quarter of this year to 120 parents of identified child workers.
Cempron said the livelihood assistance provides the parents of child laborers with the opportunity to earn an income and keep their children from engaging in child labor.
The livelihood assistance was given to parents who are involved in rag-making, meat processing, sari-sari store, hog fattening, and chicken egg production.
Arbas said 75 percent of child laborers belong to the agricultural sector, owing to the province’s economic landscape.
The Children’s Legal Bureau (CLB), a civic organization, has also intensified its campaign to eliminate the worst forms of child labor and promote protection of child workers or interventions for affected children and their families.
Under its legal assistance service, the CLB provides legal aid to child laborers to promote justice for children.
In the same forum, CLB program coordinator Mary Cindy Uy said they gathered baseline data to determine the vulnerabilities of child labor in four local government units (LGUs), namely: Zamboanguita, Dauin, Dumaguete City, and Sibulan.
In Dumaguete City, CLB focuses on “assisting mechanisms in LGUs like municipal council for the protection of children, barangay council for the protection of children, we also do ordinance writing shops,” Uy said.
The Provincial Government also focuses its program on the prevention of child labor by employing 843 child development workers to ensure quality care for over 40,000 daycare children across the province.
“We tried our best to equip our child development teachers so that they can provide quality education to our daycare children,” said Dahlia Cabristante, Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office (PSWDO) focal person for children’s program. (PIA)