MAKATI CITY – Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Jessie Robredo yesterday challenged action groups in the sugar industry to “localize” the efforts aimed at fully eradicating child labor.

By localizing or bringing the initiatives to the particular communities where child labor is present, Robredo said efforts of state agencies, non-government organizations, educational institutions, and the private sector, would more easily reach other stakeholders, especially the child workers and their families.

Robredo issued the challenge to more than a hundred representatives of NGO’s, government agencies, the academe, and sugar industry associations at the Asian Institute of Management here.

The representatives were part of the initiative, Children of the Canes: A National Conference for the Protection and Development of Children in the Sugar Industry, organized by the Laura Vicuña Foundation Inc.

LVFI is run by nuns under the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians in Sta. Mesa Manila.

Robredo also challenged the conference participants to draw a roadmap that contains their proposed solutions to the decades-long problem of child labor in the Philippines.

He said plans should be tailored to encourage ownership among beneficiaries of anti-child labor programs.

Many children involved in some form of child labor are aged between 15-17 and work in hazardous industries, Cesar Giovanni Soledad, Project Manager of the International Labor Organization-International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor in Manila, said.

Soledad said improvements in addressing the worldwide problem of child labor can only be truly done if complemented with appropriate programs for families like livelihood alternatives for parents of children involved in labor.

In terms of livelihood aid, Department of Labor and Employment Undersecretary Lourdes Trasmonte said that as of October, the DOLE has helped 862 parents of child laborers with P5.6 million worth of projects.

Parisya Taradji, Department of Social Welfare and Development Assistant Secretary, meanwhile, explained that the agency’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program helps address the initiative against child labor despite criticisms that it is a short-term dole out scheme.

Instead, Taradji, said the 4P’s is a long-term human capacity development program aimed at breaking the “inter-generational cycle of poverty” through the education of child laborers or the children of parents who belong to the ‘poorest” stratum of society.

Cecil Flores-Oebanda, president and executive director of the NGO, Visayan Forum Foundation, agreed, saying that the country needs programs that would empower children, the very targets of anti child labor and child trafficking initiatives, by allowing them to participate in the efforts made for them.*PP

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