LAGAWE, Ifugao- – The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Field Office here conducted a mid-semester assessment meeting on its Child Labor Profiling project to determine the progress in each of the municipalities and ways to improve the child labor program advocacy and activities.
In the meeting with Labor Officer III Joseph Tuguinay and Roxy Diane Bandao, it was reported that interns hired under the DOLE’s Government Internship Program(GIP) last July were able to make 640 child labor profiles for the whole province.
The municipality of Alfonso Lista has the highest number of CLs with 213 followed by Banaue with 87, Kiangan with 73, Tinoc with 51, Hingyon with 50, Asipulo with 48, Lagawe with 38, Aguinaldo and Lamut with 24 each, Hungduan with 14 and Mayoyao with 9.
The GIPs shared that their duties and functions in the local government units they were assigned included serving as administrative assistants, linkage builder/coordinator and networker in the identification of child laborers, conducting home, school and community visits as field workers, child labor enumerators, character builders, information gatekeepers and educators.
The GIPs also presented the problems they encountered while doing their work such as travelling expenses which are insufficient especially when the destination is a far-flung area and no protective suits especially during the rainy days. There are also some parents, identified child laborers and barangay officials who were hesitant to give information thereby prolonging data gathering.
With lessons learned from these experiences, the GIPs recommend that child labor profiling for 2020 should start at the first quarter of the year to avoid inconveniences during the rainy season, hiring of GIPs should be as casuals or project based until 2022 and the community facilitator hired should be increased to two considering the magnitude of the child laborers to be profiled.
Moreover, for the GIPs to develop techniques and strategies for the 2020 child labor profiling by doing aggressive home and community profiling and validation, develop a functional collaborative working relationship with other stakeholders, attend child labor program orientation, conduct child labor advocacy and fora, provide IEC materials on child labor and briefing kits.
The DOLE is the lead agency in the implementation of the Philippines Against Child Labor pursuant to Republic Act 9231 that shall provide protection to children from all forms of abuse, neglect, cruelty, exploitation and discrimination and other conditions prejudicial to their development including child labor in its worst form and aims to protect and rehabilitate children gravely threatened by circumstances which affect their survival and normal development over which they have no control.
The DOLE targeted to profile 630,000 children in the entire country to be removed from child labor by 2022 which is 30% of the 2.1 million children engaged in child labor based on the 2011 survey made by the Philippine Statistics Authority.**JDP/DBC- PIA CAR, Ifugao
