CHILD LABOR INFORMATION FOR TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT

UNCLAS MANILA 000102 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EIND ELAB ETRD PHUM SOCI USAID RP SUBJECT: CHILD LABOR INFORMATION FOR TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT ACT (GSP) 2008 REPORT REF: A. 08 STATE 127448 B. 07 MANILA 03857 ¶1. SUMMARY: This cable provides input requested for the Secretary of Labor's annual report to Congress on the implementation of commitments to eliminate the worst forms of child labor, (Ref A). It updates information provided by Post in 2007, (Ref B),regarding child labor laws and regulations in the Philippines, law enforcement capabilities, social programs aimed at prevention, statistics on child labor and child education, and government policies and programs to combat child labor and child trafficking. ¶2. Sources of information used during the preparation of this update include the Philippine Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE),the Philippine Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD),the International Labor Organization (ILO),and World Vision. The Philippine Government has strong laws in place to combat child labor and trafficking abuses, but budgetary constraints, inefficient law enforcement agencies, and an overburdened judiciary hinder successful prosecution of such abuses. The government and various NGOs conduct awareness-raising training activities in local communities throughout the country, but widespread poverty and a rapidly increasing population (approximately 36% of the population are age 14 years and under) contribute to a socio-economic environment in which child labor is seen by many in society as necessary to the economic survival of the poorest families. END SUMMARY -------------- -- Laws Proscribing the Worst Forms of Child Labor -------------- -- ¶3. The Philippines has a strong set of laws to protect the rights and welfare of children, especially those working in hazardous conditions or in the worst forms of child labor. Republic Act 9231 of 2003, "An Act Providing for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor and Affording Strong Protection for the Working Child," amends the Labor Code and codifies regulations set forth in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and ILO Convention 182. ¶4. Republic Act 9231 defines the worst forms of child labor as: (1) the trafficking, debt bondage and forced labor of children, including recruitment of children for use in armed conflict; (2) child prostitution and pornography; (3) the use of a child for illegal or illicit activities, including drug trafficking; and (4) work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is hazardous or likely to be harmful to the health, safety or morals of children. Criteria for categorizing work as hazardous include work that degrades the worth and dignity of a child; exposes the child to physical, psychological, or sexual abuse; is performed underground, underwater, or at dangerous heights; involves the use of dangerous machinery, equipment, and tools; requires the handling of heavy loads; exposes children to extreme temperatures, noise levels, or vibrations; is performed under particularly difficult conditions; exposes the child to dangerous biological agents; or involves the manufacture of handling of explosives and other pyrotechnic products. Those found guilty of the worst forms of child labor may be fined between 100,000 and 1 million pesos (between USD $2150 and USD $21,500),and/or imprisoned for 12 to 20 years. ¶5. The Labor Code prohibits the employment of children under the age of 15, except when working directly with a parent and when the work does not endanger the child's life, safety, health, or morals, or interfere with schooling. Children under 15 are allowed to work in the media industry, including cinema, theater, television, and radio, when the child's participation is essential to the production. The law requires that any child under age 15 employed under these guidelines must receive a special permit from the DOLE, but does not define the absolute minimum age for employment by children. The Armed Forces of the Philippines does not recruit soldiers below 18 years of age. However, there were reports indicating that rebel groups including the New People's Army and the Abu Sayyaf Group continued to recruit minors (below age 18). ¶6. Republic Act 9231 also amends the limits on children's working hours. Children below 15 years are not allowed to work more than four hours a day, and work should not exceed twenty hours per week. Children below 15 years are not allowed to work between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Children aged 16 to 17 years are not allowed to work between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. ¶7. Republic Act 9208 of 2003 criminalizes trafficking in persons, including trafficking for adoption, sex tourism, prostitution, pornography, the recruitment of children into armed conflict, or under the guise of arranged marriage. The trafficking of a child brings higher penalties of life imprisonment and a fine of 2 to 5 million pesos (USD $43,000 to USD $107,500). Trafficking is also a non-bailable offense. The law entitles victims and survivors to counseling, temporary shelter, health care, legal assistance, and access to the government's witness protection program. ¶8. Other laws used by government to protect the welfare of children include: Republic Act 7610 of 1992, "Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation, and Discrimination Act," which criminalizes child prostitution and sexual abuse, child trafficking, child pornography, and other acts of child abuse; and Republic Act 8043 of 1995, "Inter-Country Adoption Act," which ensures the protection of Filipino children from abuse, exploitation, trafficking, and/or sale. On November 6, 2008, the government's Special Committee for the Protection of Children formally launched the revised guidelines for media reporting and coverage of children's cases. The guidelines stress the need to protect children's rights to privacy and dignity, and the right to be heard. ¶9. The Philippines has signed and ratified the major international agreements to protect the rights and welfare of children, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (ratified in January 1990); the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, and Child Pornography (ratified in April 2002); ILO Convention 138 on Minimum Age (ratified in June 1998); and ILO Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor (ratified in November 2000). -------------- Implementation of Laws Remains Limited -------------- ¶10. While Republic Act 9231's passage improved the legal protections for working children, full implementation of this law faces the same challenges as other social legislation: limited awareness and training in the law; low numbers of law enforcement, Department of Labor and Employment, and Department of Justice (DOJ) resources; a lack of focus on enforcement; and a lengthy prosecution process. The continuing challenge, as with combating trafficking in persons, is to translate existing laws into effective deterrents to violations of international norms and Philippine law, as well as to alleviate the underlying economic and social conditions that perpetuate child labor. ¶11. DOLE is the lead government agency responsible for enforcing child labor laws through its labor standards enforcement offices. DOLE employs only 153 labor inspectors nationwide to monitor and enforce all aspects of the amended Labor Code, making it difficult to investigate effectively complaints and violations of child labor laws. DOLE has an additional 45 vacant labor inspector positions but lacks funding to fill them. ¶12. DOLE leads the "Sagip Batang Manggagawa" (Rescue the Child Workers, or SBM) program, an interagency quick action mechanism composed of DOLE, Philippine National Police (PNP), and DSWD. The SBM interagency mechanism removed 1,723 child labor victims from harmful situations between 2001 and 2007. In the first three months of 2008, SBM conducted 16 removal operations, involving 59 child workers. The minors were referred to DSWD for rehabilitation and reintegration. Statistics for the remainder of 2008 are not yet available; however, one of DOLE's priorities for 2009 is to improve its statistical and reporting system. ¶13. Prosecutions and convictions for child labor continue to be limited. Since 1995, only six people have been convicted or violating the child labor law. From 2003 to the end of 2008, fifteen establishments employing 45 minors were closed by DOLE for violating Republic Acts 9231 and 9208. Charges have been filed against the owners of the establishments (primarily videoke clubs),and litigation is ongoing. DOLE's Bureau of Women and Young Workers noted that data on child labor prosecutions may be inaccurate due to incomplete statistics from the provinces. ¶14. The government continued to conduct awareness raising activities on child labor and child trafficking laws. In January DOLE and a local NGO jointly organized a national consultation on the prevention of trafficking for the worst forms of child labor. DOLE also regularly conducted child labor training programs for their labor inspectors. The government acknowledged that the limited number of labor inspectors, who assess the establishments' compliance on general labor standards and are not entirely focused on the employment of child labor, made it difficult to enforce child labor laws. -------------- Government Policies and Programs -------------- ¶15. The Philippine National Strategic Framework for Plan Development for Children, 2000-2025, also known as "Child 21," and the National Program Against Child Labor (NPACL), presently known as the Philippine Program Against Child Labor (PPACL),are the primary government policy instruments for the development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of programs designed to prevent and eliminate child labor in the Philippines. The Medium Term Philippine Development Plan 2004-2010 also includes measures for reducing the incidence of child labor, especially in hazardous occupations. In the plan, the Philippine Government pledges to strengthen mechanisms to monitor the implementation of child protection laws; develop "social technologies" to respond to child trafficking and pornography; and implement an enhanced program for children in armed conflict. In May 2008, DOLE organized a Harmonization Workshop for the PPACL Plan of Action 2008-2010 to enable stakeholders to actively participate in all stages of the planning process and drafting of the plan. ¶16. In 2008 the DOLE completed its plan of action for the Philippine Program Against Child Labor (PPACL) Strategic Framework, 2007-2015. The plan established a multi-level information system to regularly update a reliable database system on child labor in all regions. It also institutionalized strategic partnerships with UNICEF, the International Labor Organization (ILO),and 611 civil society groups and NGOs nationwide. The plan calls for conducting continuing awareness training for DOLE and Philippine National Police (PNP) employees as well as for the parents of child laborers. The plan seeks to promote a pro-active response by government structures at all levels to eliminate child labor and to enforce compliance with relevant laws and policies. ¶17. The Philippine Government, with support from the U.S. and other foreign governments, participated in several initiatives to combat child labor in the country. The key programs, implemented in cooperation with the ILO and World Vision were: -- Combating Child Labor in Small-Scale Mining: ILO Manila, in partnership with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA),is working to combat child labor in small-scale mining in Camarines Norte province. This USD $20,000 project funded by the Finnish Embassy aims to enroll 40 child laborers in vocational skills training and provides entrepreneurship training for the parents. Twenty children have already received skills training, and the other twenty have been enrolled. A training of trainers (TOT) module to create a pool of trainers from TESDA, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI),DOLE, and a cooperative bank have also been established for the province. TESDA's skills training and job placement programs are currently being evaluated to make the program more responsive to the needs of working children and their families. -- ABK Education Initiative Phase 2: World Vision, which has entered into separate Memorandums of Agreement (MOA) with DOLE and the Department of Education to work with local government units (LGUs) and other NGO partners, has begun implementing Phase 2 of the ABK Education Initiative. This four-year, U.S.-supported project aims to withdraw and prevent an estimated 30,000 children from working in seven hazardous occupations: sugarcane plantations and other commercial agricultural enterprises, domestic work, commercial sex, mining and quarrying, pyrotechnics production, scavenging, and commercial fishing. The ABK Initiative provides transitional or vocational education programs for working children as well as those identified to be "at-risk." The training program is an open enrollment system that consists of 10 modules the children must complete in order to be awarded the credits. Phase 1 of the program, which ended in 2008, provided elementary, high school, vocational technical training and alternative learning systems education to 31,320 children, 14,323 of whom were considered to be "at-risk." Phase 2, which began in October 2008, has already enrolled 9,318 child laborers. -- Child Labor Initiative (ChiLI) Project: In partnership with the LGUs and other government departments, World Vision has implemented a USD $50,000 project co-funded by the Korean government in three areas of Leyte province to: improve access of working children to formal education and alternative learning systems; increase capacity of parents and guardians to provide for their children; and increase communities' awareness of their responsibility to nurture and protect their children. The project, which began in June 2007 and ended in May 2008, used counseling and education to remove 300 children from workplaces. A total of 275 of these children successfully completed the school year. The ChiLI Project also trained 150 parents and guardians on parental responsibilities and provided awareness training to the affected communities on child labor and children's rights. ¶18. DOLE is implementing the second phase of a USD $400,000 project funded by the Geneva-based Elimination of Child Labor in Tobacco (ECLT) Foundation to reduce the incidence of child labor in the tobacco fields of the Ilocos region. From January to September 2008, the project provided scholarship grants to 246 children and conducted entrepreneurship training for 280 parents. It also held capacity-building seminars for 213 program partners in five municipalities. ¶19. The government devoted a significant portion of its limited budget resources to the education of children. The Department of Education (DepEd) had the largest budget of any cabinet department - 12 percent of the national budget. Elementary and secondary education are free and compulsory through age 11, but the quality of the education remains poor due in part to insufficient resources. Government support for the education of poor children is provided indirectly through the public school system rather than through targeted subsidies. The elementary public school enrollment rate for the 2007-2008 school year was 76 percent. The enrollment rate for secondary students is not available. ¶20. DepEd's Bureau of Non-Formal Education develops and encourages the use of learning modules for parents of working children in the various regions with high incidences of the worst forms of child labor. Translated into local dialects, the modules educate parents about their children's health needs and basic rights and opportunities for livelihood and income-generating projects. DepEd also operates a home-study program designed to prevent students from dropping out of school due to poverty, illness, or early marriage. With assistance from the Philippines Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) and the Commission on Filipinos Overseas, DepEd incorporated lessons on international migration, including illegal recruitment and mail order brides, into social studies and values education classes in public elementary and secondary schools throughout the country. -------------- Child Labor Statistics -------------- ¶21. According to the latest Philippine Government survey in 2001, an estimated 4 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 are engaged in child labor. More than half of the working children (2.1 million) were found to be working in agriculture and related industries, of whom about 71 percent were male and 60 percent were aged 5 to 14 years old. Other industry groups with high numbers of children at work were in the wholesale and retail services (approximately 747,000 or 18.6 percent),domestic work (230,000 or 5.7 percent), fishing (208,000 or 5.2 percent),and manufacturing (186,000) or 4.6 percent). The director of DOLE's Bureau of Women and Young Workers told Post that the number of child laborers may have increased since the 2001 survey, but the government does not have the funds to conduct a new survey. -------------- COMBATING CHILD TRAFFICKING -------------- ¶22. The Philippines is an origin, destination and, to a lesser extent, a transit country for children trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation and forced labor. Children and young women from poor farming communities in the central and southern Philippines are brought to major urban centers and employed as factory workers, domestic helpers, or prostitutes. Victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation are generally girls, with ages ranging from 7 to 16 years old. Most of these children come from very poor families with unemployed or irregularly employed parents. The Visayan Forum Foundation in 2008 established a halfway house near Manila's airport for rescued children identified by airport officials as victims of trafficking. ¶23. Child prostitution is a serious problem, exacerbated by the Philippines' reputation as a destination for sex tourists as well as the country's economic and demographic conditions. Sex tourists reportedly come from East Asia, Europe, North America, and neighboring countries to engage in sexual activity with minors. UNICEF and local NGOs estimate that 60,000 to 100,000 children work in the commercial sex industry. DSWD estimates a net increase of 3,200 prostituted children each year. The government cooperates with the USG in prosecuting American nationals under the terms of the U.S. Protect Act of 2003, which criminalized the commission by American nationals overseas of child abuse, including child pornography and other sexual offenses against a minor. Social workers at World Vision told Post that while the international sex tourism industry garners the most headlines, most child prostitutes work in local communities where it is very difficult for the government and the NGOs to identify them. They frequently work in videoke bars by using fake IDs or on the city streets where it is easy for them to avoid police and social workers. ¶24. The Philippine Government has no central database of trafficking information; however, various government agencies and NGOs document cases of trafficking. The Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking in Persons (IACAT) coordinates, monitors, and oversees the implementation of Republic Act 9208, and serves as an umbrella organization to coordinate anti-trafficking efforts. The DOJ Secretary and the DSWD Secretary co-chair IACAT. Other member agencies include the Department of Foreign Affairs, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women, Bureau of Immigration, Department of Labor and Employment, National Bureau of Investigation, and the Philippine National Police. Three NGOs representing women, children, and overseas Filipino workers are also part of IACAT. ¶25. The Philippine Government has made progress in combating trafficking, particularly in the areas of law enforcement and victim protection and assistance. There have been twelve convictions under the 2003 anti-trafficking in persons law, involving 55 female victims, including minors. All of these victims were trafficked for prostitution. DSWD provides basic social services such as counseling, medical services, temporary shelter, and repatriation for minors rescued from prostitution. DSWD operates 38 temporary shelters for victims throughout the country. Of these, 11 centers are for women, 13 are for girls, and the remaining 14 are for boys, men, and the elderly. From January through September 2008, DSWD assisted 89 victims of child prostitution and 149 victims of child trafficking. DSWD also referred cases for women and children to accredited NGOs, which provided temporary shelter and community services to women and children in crisis, including victims of trafficking. ¶26. NGOs such as the Visayan Forum Foundation, Virlanie Foundations, End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT), Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW),and the People's Recovery, Empowerment, and Development Assistance (PREDA) Foundation Inc. complement government efforts by offering counseling services, training, housing, and formal and non-formal education to rescued child trafficking victims. ¶27. The Philippine Government has enacted all the necessary laws to combat the worst forms of child labor as called for in article 4 of ILO Convention 182. The government and various NGOs are working hard to educate the parents of child laborers and their local communities about the rights of children. They have set up community watch groups and have trained teachers to advocate for children who are being victimized or trafficked. One of the most difficult tasks faced by both government workers and NGOs is in educating parents on the difference between child labor and acceptable child work. Large sugar plantations hire only adults to work their fields, but the parents bring the children along to help fertilize the fields, weed, and cut the cane to maximize the families' earnings. The government finds it very difficult legally to prosecute the plantation owners in such cases, so the government and NGOs are focusing their efforts on education and assistance to the families. ¶28. A substantial portion of the child labor force is working in domestic households and home-based cottage industries, where government does not have the resources to monitor their use of child labor. To compensate for this lack of visibility, DOLE, working with PNP, has sought support from the Women and Children's desks in police stations to investigate complaints of child labor abuse. A national emergency hotline handles calls involving incidents of child labor abuse and trafficking and reports them to local government units. The lack of hard statistics and data makes it nearly impossible to estimate the content of child labor in any given manufactured product, but anecdotal evidence lends support to the conclusion that child labor is not a significant component of most Philippine exports. The Philippine Government has enacted the necessary laws to identify and eliminate the worst forms of child labor and, in conjunction with its strategic partners, is working to deter and combat child labor and trafficking. The effectiveness of the government's efforts, however, is limited by lack of funds, weak enforcement, and a cumbersome judicial process. KENNEY