Senator Sherwin Gatchalian has urged the government to intensify its crackdown on child labour as the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic threatened to put millions of children and their families in poverty.
The senator said the National Council Against Child Labour should ensure that Republic Act 7610, or the “Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act,” remained in full force.
He made this call after the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) warned that the Covid-19 pandemic could reverse the global decline in child labour.
Gatchalian noted that in the last 20 years, there were 94mn fewer children in child labour, but the Unicef and ILO “warned that the gain is now at risk.”
He also warned that with 7.3mn Filipinos losing their jobs amid the Covid-19 pandemic, some children would end up dropping out of school and finding a job to help their families survive.
“Our children must be studying and must not be obliged to work to overcome the crisis brought about by Covid-19,” Gatchalian said.
The chairman of the Senate Committee on Basic Education said before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country, child labour in the Philippines was already a challenge.
According to the United States Department of Labour’s 2018 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, 3.2mn Filipino children aged five to 17 engage in child labour — about 3mn of whom engage in hazardous work.
The same report from the US Labour Department showed that some Filipino children were engaged in dangerous tasks in both agriculture and mining.
“The worst forms of child labour affecting children in the Philippines include the recruitment of children in armed conflict and commercial sexual exploitation,” Gatchalian said.
He cited the example of Brazil, where parental unemployment because of economic shocks led children to step in and provide temporary support.
Similar trends were observed in Guatemala, India, Mexico and Tanzania, he said.
“If we cannot stop the increasing number of children forced to earn a living, there is danger that they face different kinds of abuses even more,” he said.
Gatchalian also stressed the role of subsidies to provide income security for workers and families, which could help spare children from taking on jobs.
According to him, this justified the urgent need to passing the proposed Senate Bill 1564, or the “Bayanihan to Recover as One Act” or “Bayanihan version 2.0,” to continuously provide relief for affected families.
The senator said Bayanihan 2.0 contains provisions that would provide tuition subsidies to students facing financial difficulties but are not covered by government educational subsidies or voucher programmes.
from Gulf Times https://ift.tt/317rv1K
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