Philippines, 12 June 2009 - As the World Day Against Child Labor was celebrated in various parts of the globe on June 12, child rights advocates belonging to the SALINLAHI Alliance for Children’s Concerns called on Gloria Arroyo to stop her self-serving politicking and attend to the serious business of the rights and welfare of Filipino children who are forced to work and help their unemployed parents put food on the table.

 

“The 2000-2001 survey on children by the ILO and NSO, revealed that at that time when the combined unemployment and underemployment rate was at 30%, over 4 million children were forced to work, with a big number engaging in hazardous labor and the biggest percentage working in rural and agricultural areas. Today, almost a decade since that survey, with an estimated combined unemployment and underemployment rate of 25.9%, SALINLAHI foresees much more than 4 million children of peasant and worker families will push their bones to the limit to augment their family’s below-subsistence income. We account the increase to the unmistakable impact of the global financial crisis on the continued dis-employment which has started to be felt especially in the first half of 2009, and also to the increased population base which, in August 2007 was already estimated at 88.6M compared to the census of 76.5M in 2000,” explained Sophia Garduce, spokesperson for SALINLAHI Alliance for Children’s Concerns.

 

“It is extremely lamentable that in the face of an estimated number of over 4 million working children, the Department of Social Welfare and Development served only a total 136 abused working children as reflected in its 2008 report. In fact, DSWD offices in CAR, Regions II,  IV-A, V, VI and VII were not able to serve a single case of abused working children, according to their report. This, despite the fact that more than 200,000 working children were registered in each of these regions except for CAR which reported 65,000 working children in the survey.  We in SALINLAHI feel that in this matter, government has proven itself a failure in reaching out to working children who most need its programs and services, and also in making children and their families feel that they can approach its agencies for services,” Garduce added.

 

“How can we celebrate the World Day Against Child Labor when, to this day, working children continue to carry the burden of government’s anti-labor and anti-peasant policies? How can Gloria Arroyo, an avowed economist, not see that the workers’ call for a P125 wage increase nationwide and a push for genuine land reform are policies that can unshackle the Filipino working children’s extreme burden on their frail bodies?, Garduce pointed out. “We are running out of time. Our children are growing up stunted, forced to work at an early age and unable to go to school. Their future remains bleak for as long as Arroyo and her lackeys continue to push policies that only perpetuate their selfish interests at the expense of the majority of the Filipino children,” ended Garduce. XXX