Still plaguing kids: Child labor
By Anna Keyser
For Martin, though at an early age, working is a must.
Martin is one of the many children worldwide who engage in child labor. Seventy percent of the world’s working children are in agriculture. From tending cattle to harvesting crops, handling dangerous machinery and spraying pesticides, over 132 million children aged 5 to 14 help produce the basic necessities of life like food and clothing. Martin is the fifth in a family of seven children. At 15, he dropped out of high school to help his father on the farm. His two elder brothers had died in a tragic accident shortly before.
Martin felt he was duty-bound to help provide for his younger siblings. “I was afraid that my younger brother and sister would also have to quit school and work because we didn’t have enough money”, says Martin.,
According to a survey conducted in 2001, more than 60 per cent of working children aged 5 to 17 work on farms in the country. An estimated five million families depend on seasonal contract work on sugarcane plantations, which causes many children to drop out of school.
In Western Visayas, the country’s leading sugar producing region, 88.3 per cent of families with working children earn below P10,000 (US $ 200) a month – every hand, therefore, is needed to improve the family income.
Working for long hours under the scorching heat of the sun, children risk hurting themselves with the ‘spading’, the local name for the large heavy machete used in cutting sugarcane. They are also exposed to chemicals and fertilizer which they handle with their bare hands.
In 2006, the ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) partnered with the Sugar Industry Foundation, Inc. (SIFI) to address child labour in Western Visayas. SIFI is a Philippine foundation where sugar farmers, sugar mill owners and representatives of farm labourers come together to address the concerns of sugar workers.
Under the IPEC-SIFI program, working children were given technical skills training and scholarships for further schooling while over 100 family members working on sugarcane farms participated in seminars to enhance their business skills.
Martin joined over 80 others who were given skills training. After a 75-day on-the-job training in a company that leases heavy equipment for construction work, Martin was hired by the same company as a mechanic assistant. As Martin is still under age 18, tasks and conditions are still to be monitored since he is not to do dangerous work according to ILO standards on child labour.
Not all of them are as lucky as Martin’s younger brother and sister. Today, Martin is no longer afraid that his two siblings may quit school to work in the sugarcane fields.
“I am happy that I can give money to my parents to send my younger brother and sister to school,” he says. For the ILO, agriculture remains a priority sector for the elimination of child labour.
For Martin, though at an early age, working is a must.
Martin is one of the many children worldwide who engage in child labor. Seventy percent of the world’s working children are in agriculture. From tending cattle to harvesting crops, handling dangerous machinery and spraying pesticides, over 132 million children aged 5 to 14 help produce the basic necessities of life like food and clothing. Martin is the fifth in a family of seven children. At 15, he dropped out of high school to help his father on the farm. His two elder brothers had died in a tragic accident shortly before.
Martin felt he was duty-bound to help provide for his younger siblings. “I was afraid that my younger brother and sister would also have to quit school and work because we didn’t have enough money”, says Martin.,
According to a survey conducted in 2001, more than 60 per cent of working children aged 5 to 17 work on farms in the country. An estimated five million families depend on seasonal contract work on sugarcane plantations, which causes many children to drop out of school.
In Western Visayas, the country’s leading sugar producing region, 88.3 per cent of families with working children earn below P10,000 (US $ 200) a month – every hand, therefore, is needed to improve the family income.
Working for long hours under the scorching heat of the sun, children risk hurting themselves with the ‘spading’, the local name for the large heavy machete used in cutting sugarcane. They are also exposed to chemicals and fertilizer which they handle with their bare hands.
In 2006, the ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) partnered with the Sugar Industry Foundation, Inc. (SIFI) to address child labour in Western Visayas. SIFI is a Philippine foundation where sugar farmers, sugar mill owners and representatives of farm labourers come together to address the concerns of sugar workers.
Under the IPEC-SIFI program, working children were given technical skills training and scholarships for further schooling while over 100 family members working on sugarcane farms participated in seminars to enhance their business skills.
Martin joined over 80 others who were given skills training. After a 75-day on-the-job training in a company that leases heavy equipment for construction work, Martin was hired by the same company as a mechanic assistant. As Martin is still under age 18, tasks and conditions are still to be monitored since he is not to do dangerous work according to ILO standards on child labour.
Not all of them are as lucky as Martin’s younger brother and sister. Today, Martin is no longer afraid that his two siblings may quit school to work in the sugarcane fields.
“I am happy that I can give money to my parents to send my younger brother and sister to school,” he says. For the ILO, agriculture remains a priority sector for the elimination of child labour.