“Teaching kids how to feed themselves and how to live in a community responsibly is the center of an education.” – Alice Waters
Children are forced by their own circumstances not by their doing because they too, have their own hopes, dreams and aspirations.
Globally, the realities of children doing work in various sectors is not uncommon. Child labor in agriculture in particular, occupies the most prominent feature of these realities. Poverty is considered as one of the most important causes of child labor as it is linked to other driving factors including: low literacy and numeracy rates, lack of decent work opportunities, natural disasters and climate change, conflicts and mass displacement.
However, these painful realities that can become new realities.
CHILDREN’S PERENNIAL DESPAIR
In a report by Mildred Rollolazo and Luisa Logan titled, “An In-Depth of the Situation of Child Labor in Agriculture”, they identified 4 major sectors in agriculture where child labor persists. In the Philippines, there were 4 major crops or sectors where child labor was studied. These studies found out that there were only 2 sectors where child labor were prominently exposed to.
These 4 major sectors are: rubber, banana, sugarcane and pineapple. Note that these products are our major agricultural produce for mainly for export. But, most notable in this research paper is that it was only in sugar cane and rubber where children toil. And, between these two, it is in sugarcane that children are most exploited.
The paper further discusses that, “The sugar and rubber industries use child laborers in the company of their parents, specifically, their mothers. A conservative estimate reveals that the sugarcane child workers are around 60,000 and, in rubber they were about 12,000.”
CHILDREN’S TRAVAILS
Despite the advancement – farm modernization and mechanization, child labor persists. Today, there are more children in the production process due to cheap labor and production has become a “family affair”.
Most notable in the sugarcane industry is the CARP implementation. This is prevalent among small agrarian reform beneficiaries where most of them farm their own lands. While they play important roles in the productivity yet they are not recognized. Not recognized, in the sense, that they are not paid and if, paid they are paid, it is much lower. If their parents as productive forces are paid way too low then, working children wages can be un-imaginable.
At first, they perceive their productive role as mere play and, eventually becoming support to their parents. Clearly, this speaks of the family’s inability to meet their daily basic needs. Worse, they suffer from exposures to sun and rain coupled with hazards including, but not limited to cuts and wounds.
MORE PAINFUL FIGURES
In the early 2000 a survey of child labor in the Philippines was conducted and, to this day this is still stands as a grimacing fact that continue to persist.
More than 50 percent of the working children ages 5-17 years old or 2.1 million were engaged in agriculture. They are found in Region VII (235,000) followed by Region VI (205,000) and then by Region VIII (197,000). There are more young boys (1,526,000 or 71 percent) of the total number of children working in agriculture than girls (614,000 or 28 percent).
Most of these working children of about 2.4M or 59 percent of the working children were unpaid in their own household-operated farm or business and one out of two (49.5 percent or 1.98 M) of these working children were in the farm.
STRATEGIES
Child labor has gone worse especially in agriculture, and, in sugarcane production most particularly. It is hoped that we can reduce if not, totally eliminate the exploitative child labor in the growing sugarcane areas in Negros and some other parts of the country by undertaking pro-active educational services to targeted children but with livelihood support to the other members of the family. Mobilization of all stakeholders to expand and scale these educational opportunities.
Ensure other alternative or other technical knowledge and skills that they can use to be more productive with exposing them to physical and mental exploitation. Policies pertaining to agriculture and children’s rights must be enhanced and improved in order to insulate them to further abuses that expose their vulnerabilities. Programs and services such as livelihood, health and education remain to be crucial.
Providing them these fundamental necessities also requires ensuring sustainable economic activities to their parents for them to pursue their own dreams, hopes and aspirations.*
