DOLE 6’s stakeholders, partners walk forprevention, elimination of child labor

Iloilo City.Despite the inclement weather, some 2,106 stakeholders and partners joined the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE)-Region 6’s “Walk for a Cause”Para sa Batang Manggagawa held last Friday as part of its effort to prevent and eliminate child labor in the Region.

This is the second year that the DOLE 6 implemented such activity region wide which aims to raise funds for the Project Angel Tree, a component of the DOLE Child Labor Prevention and Elimination Program which provides an array of social services to child laborers and their families.

In Aklan, 413 students, partners and other stakeholders participated in this year’s “Walk for Cause”; 328 in Antique; 323 in Capiz; 255 in Guimaras; 319 in Iloilo; and,468 in Negros Occidental.

The proceeds of this activity will be used to purchase school supplieswhich will be distributed to the intended beneficiaries who will come from identified local government units in the region with high incidence of child labor.

A total of 933 child laborers all throughout the region were provided with school supplies under the DOLE’s Project Angel Treein 2018 out of the proceeds from the first “Walk for Cause” conducted on June 12, in an effort to help children withdrawn from or at risk of child labor to remain in school.

This year’s “Walk for a Cause” culminated with a Covenant signing among partner-national government agencies and non-government organizations on their convergence efforts, as well as their commitment to prevent and eliminate child labor in the Region through the profiling and provision of the necessary assistance or services to those who will be referred to them based on child laborers’ needs.

The Region profiled a total of 7,211 child laborers from the six provinces in the region in 2018. This year, it targeted to profile 12,285 child laborers.

In his welcome message, DOLE Region 6 Director Cyril L. Ticao thanked all those who joined for their overwhelming support despite the bad weather. He encouraged them to help the government in its advocacy campaign to raise the level of public awareness on child labor and the government’s effort to prevent and eliminate this menace.

Based on the 2011 Survey on Children conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority, there were 2.1 million children ages 5-17 years old engaged in Child Labor, 97.7 per cent of whom were in hazardous child labor. Western Visayas ranked 5^th among the regions with high incidence of child labor.