Institutionalization of national child labor committee to alleviate child laborers

November 11, 2019 Metro BLISTT

Baguio City – Embarked into our minds as we still reminisce our grade school days until today our National Hero Dr. Jose Rizal once quoted that the youth is the hope of our country”. Ang kabataan ay pagasa ng ating bayan”. One of the program of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is to eliminate the quantity of child laborers and children at risk to child labor in each regions, provided herein is the RA 9231 which otherwise known as the ‘Special Protection of children Against Child Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination.’
Under this said Act, the constitution declares it as policy of the state to recognize the vital role of the youth in nation-building and to promote and protect the youth’s physical, moral, spiritual, intellectual and social well-being.
The reorganized version of National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) established in 2011 was now institutionalized as the National Council against Child Labor (NCCL), to upscale the implementation of the Philippine Program against Child Labor (PPACL) was signed by President Rodrigo Duterte on September 17.
The government has established the PPACL as a nationwide program for the prevention and elimination of child labor, and has institutionalized the NCCL through a memorandum of agreement between various government agencies and instrumentality with relevant mandates, to coordinate policies and inter-agency arrangements relative to the PPACL.
As defined, child labor is any work or economic activity performed by a child that subjects a child to any form of exploitation or harm to health and safety, physical, metal or psychosocial development while child work is directly under the responsibility of their legal guardian, the child only performs light work and it respects the child’s rights to health and education.
One of the objectives under the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022 of realizing the country’s vision of a “Child-Labor free Philippines,” reducing inequality, and molding socio-economic resilient Filipinos, this Administration aims to provide universal and transformative protection to all families and children.
 
Shermae Anayasan/ABN