ILO says child labour remains rampant in Philippines

Jun 12, 2008, 9:21 GMT

Manila - Child labour remains rampant in the Philippines despite the government's efforts to keep children in school, an official of the International Labour Organization (ILO) said Thursday.

Keiko Niimi, deputy director of the Manila-based ILO subregional office, noted that based on the latest Philippine government data, there are an estimated 774,000 child labourers in the country.

About 98,000 of the child labourers are aged between five and nine.

'Despite all efforts, the fight against child labour remains a challenge,' Niimi said. 'We have to ensure that child labourers are successfully integrated in schools and they do not return to work until they grow up and acquire education and training.'

She said Filipino parents living in poverty often send their children to work in order to help support the family.

'When families have limited resources, children as young as five are forced to work at the cost of dropping out of school, risking their health or even their lives,' Niimi said.

Filipino children often work as helpers in public markets, farms, quarrying sites and dump sites, sometimes exposing them to hazardous situations. Others work as househelp.

Government efforts to keep the children in school are being hampered by widespread poverty that afflicts more than a third of the country's 88 million people.