4m minors engaged in child labour

Manila: Three out of ten Philippine households employ child workers, an official said.

Luzviminda Padilla, labour undersecretary for workers' protection and welfare, said in a report reaching Manila that at least three million households have children who are working.

"Child labour in the Philippines is widespread, but it is more prevalent in agriculture, including in the sugar industry where the labour department is keeping a tight watch," she said in a report published by the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Philippine law classifies individuals below the age of 17 as minors and Padilla said despite this regulation that prevents children from being employed, hundreds of thousands of workers as young as five years old can be found working in households or tilling the fields across the country.

At the National Policy Conference for the Protection and Development of Child Labourers in the Sugar Industry, Padilla said that of the country's 25 million children aged between 5 and 17, at least 16 per cent, or 4 million are working based on findings of the 2001 Philippine Survey on Children, the latest study on child labour in the country.

"Child labour is largely a rural and agricultural phenomenon," said Padilla adding that almost three million, or 70 per cent of working children, are found in rural areas.

"About 2.1 million, or 53 per cent of the rural child labourers, are in agriculture, hunting and forestry; and nearly two million, or 49.5 per cent, worked in farms," the official said.

She said child work is usually family work.

"Nearly 60 per cent, or 2.4 million, are unpaid workers in family-operated farms or businesses," she pointed out.

The survey also emphasised that at least 30,000 Filipino children work away from home.

"A total of 2.4 million working children were exposed to biological hazards, such as viruses, bacteria and parasites; physical hazards, such as noise and extreme temperatures; and chemical hazards like dust, liquid, mist and fumes," Padilla said.

More than a million working children were reported to be engaged in heavy physical work; 830,000 said they found their work risky or dangerous; 940,000 had work-related injuries, and 750,000 said they had a work-related illness.