I. INTRODUCTION: In this paper we view child labor as a negative externality exerted by some poor countries on richer nations. We inquire into the feasibility of international transfers as a way of addressing this externality. We build a two-country growth model with human capital and child labor. We then calibrate our model to the United States and a poor country, solve it numerically and provide a quantitative description of the minimum transfers necessary to induce the poor to give up child labor. We then check their sustainability from the point of view of the rich
Exploitation of child workers continues in the Philippines due to the inefficiency of the policies promulgated by the government to eradicate child labour. For all children who are deprived of their rights. “But even we have a responsibility too. Because while nobody is angered by their conditions or realizes the waste of a future that is being slowly squandered, they will remain in this world and they will cease to be children. All people were born with rights. Children are people too; so, children also have rights.
These rights are violated through child labour. Child labour is defined as, “the employment of a child in a business or industry especially in violation of state or federal statutes prohibiting the employment of children under a specified age. ”1 Obviously, it has become a rigid social problem the world over, specifically in third world countries such as the Philippines where child labour is widespread. The authors of this paper will tackle the cases of child labourers, specifically in the city and in provinces of the Philippines.
And as for it being one of the social problems existing in the country, does the Philippine government look for ways to manage or better yet, eradicate child labour? The paper focuses on this. It is a known fact that the disadvantages outnumber the advantages of child labour. The researchers present three points, so the reader could better view the advantages and the disadvantages of the said problem. Relationship of child labour to Philippine economy laws about it, government program for child labourers, statistics rate of child labour, kinds of child labour reason for child labour. Child Labour and the Philippine Economy
The historical background could help the reader to understand more of child labour. The purpose of this study is to present the rapid growth or increase of child labourers in the Philippines. Another would be to discuss the effects of child labour to the family, economy, and to the self. Lastly, to cite ways on how to stop child labour. 1 “Child labour,” Industrial child labour first appeared with the development of the domestic system. In this type of production an entrepreneur bought raw materials to be “put out” to the homes of workmen to be spun, woven, sewn, or handled in some other manner.
This permitted a division of labour and a degree of specialization among various families. Pay was by piece, and children were extensively used at whatever task they could perform. This system was important in England and in North America from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century and it lingers up to the present in some industries and, in some countries including the Philippines. B. Child labours in the Philippines the kid who is coerced to beg on streets and helps make money for professional beggars. The child prostitute who helps buoy the tourist trade. The emancipated body digging out soil in mines and quarries.
The girl working as indentured servant in a private home. The child scavenging in dumpsites. The runner helping distribute illegal drugs. The nubile girl working as a dancer in a night spot, and the teenage starlet exposing mere skin than necessary on the theatre screen. Truly, child labour has many faces. It is a work performed by children either endangers their health or safety, interferes with or prevents their education, or 3 keeps them away from play and other activities important to their development. 2 Children have rights. Government bureaucrats and the do-gooders tell us that.
But we look around and we see a widespread denial of those rights. We can’t deny the fact that every year, the number of child labourers increases. International Labour Organization estimates that the government place the number of child labourers in the country at eight hundred thousand (800,000), but actual figures may be as high as five million (5,000,000). 3 “No. of child labourers Region 1……………………………56,000 Region 2.. ……………………56,000 Region 3.. …………………………. 36,000 Region 4…… …………………104,000 Region 5……………………………. 64,000 Region 6 ……………………96,000 Region 7……………………………48,000 Region 8. ………………………. 48,000 Region 9…….. ………………….. 40,000 Region 10……….. ……………48,000 Region 11…………….. ……………80,000 Region 12………………….. ……40,000 NCR…………………………… ……. 24,000 CAR…………………………………24,000 TOTAL……………………….. ……. 800,000” The number of children working in the cities are more than seventy thousand (70,000). 5 These children really struggle to survive in the city. Majority of them cannot be seen during the day since they are working in large factories and in houses if not they’ll be working as prostitutes at night. The Philippine garment industry commonly uses child labour in manufacture of products exported to the United States. Children workers are also found in food processing; the manufactures of wood and rattan furniture, fire works or pyrotechnics, plastic bags, and foot wear. In Metro Manila alone, between forty-five to fifty thousand (45,000-50,000) are child laborers. 7 One of the reasons of the rapid growth of child labour in the city is because they are recruited from the provinces and were promised to have a good life here. Another is that they were forced to work due to poverty. Since children are more industrious compared to other people who are in the right age to work, employers usually get them.
According to the Department of Social Welfare and Development, majority of the child labourers that they have handled usually goes home to their families after their work is done they are in groups with their friends or guided by their “managers” usually pimps or policemen. “DSWD also noted that children who don not have families to go home to; they often live in pushcarts, streets, drainpipe, cemented pavements, or even on stagnant water. ”9 Some of the children that have stayed with them tried to escape because they prefer in streets, working and earning money even though they are paid in small amounts and very hazardous. This like the case of Arnulfo Berano who finished only third grade and is now working at a rice store and gets one hundred pesos (P100. 00) a month for carrying sacks of rice. He said it is better being on that store rather than being like a prisoner with the DSWD. ”10 “Eddie Malasi, fifteen years old said, he dropped out of school and left home because there was not a day that his father forced him to work or else he was beaten. ”11 There is also this so called “legal” child labour in the city. It is the girls who are involved in the entertainment industry.
They deny their real age and pretend to be eighteen years old. 1. Province “Based on the statistics there are six hundred to seven hundred thousand (600,000-700,000) child labourers in the provinces and is larger than that of the cities. ”12 It is because children there help their parents in earning a living and sometimes they are forced to stop schooling. Some of them work as a farmer, fisherman, takes care of their siblings, or serve as a housemaid of their rich neighbours and what is worse is that they work as a payment for their families’ debt. “Take the case of Abrelia Pablo, thirteen years old.
For six hundred pesos (P600. 00) a month, with free meals and housing, Abrelia lived with her employer at the Midsayap Golden Miki factory in Cotabato where she works from 6:30 a. m. to 9:00 p. m. Monday to Saturday as a packer. When she was new at work, the tips of her fingers were cut by machines in the factory that has no machine guards. ”13 “Then there are Ronald and Felix, both thirteen years old, who carry cement bags by the hundreds each night at the Pulauanan Port in Dipolog, and Joel, fourteen , who survived several cave-ins on Mt. Diwalwal on Mindanao. 14 Another is the case of the children in the documentary Minsan Lang Sila Bata (Only Once They Are Children). “Their stories show millions of Filipino children at this moment backbreaking, dangerous and filthy work for pitiful wages and enjoying a small portion of the rewards of their work. ”15 “Tikboy, for instance, works from 10 p. m. to 3a. m. , at the Cebu slaughterhouse, charged with shaving off the remaining hair on pig carcasses. For five hours’ labour spent amid the stench and noise of dying animals, slipping on blood and guts, and dodging sharp knives and chains.
Tikboy’s earnings is a small plastic bag of pork fat, gristle and sometimes a little meat, which he will sell in the market for money to give to his mother. But he is even luckier than Delena, her brothers and other children working as hornals in Ormoc. Tikboy at least has the momentary pleasure of holding cash in his hands. Delena’s labors are chalked up to pay off her family’s debts to the haciendero, incurred during the fallow season when, with no work and no income, her family must borrow against future wages for their subsistence.
Its difficult work, especially in the heat of the day, and also dangerous work, wielding sharp bolos to whack at weeds, then gathering them to be burnt. ” “Bobbi, who counts as his real family a gang of teenage boys working as cargo handlers at the pier, wants to be a lawyer when he grows up. He has stopped going to school and with his work: hauling cement bags on his head from the cargo hold to the boat deck, inhaling cement dust that stings his nostrils and lungs. ” There seems no end to the range of jobs that these children do, either by force or by choice. Still poverty is the reason why these children in the provinces work.
Obviously the government’s efforts’ in protecting them and lessening these child labourers are not enough. A. Disadvantages of Child labour 1. Family “A study of Department of Labour and Employment showed that here in the Philippines seventy percent (70%) of these working children return home every evening. ”18 They in short are not burdens to their families. On the contrary, they contribute to the family’s income. They are often recruited by people who exploit child labour and in the process they are being totally deprived of school education and the opportunity to experience the wonder years of their lives which is their childhood. They deprived of their rights to a well rounded development of their personality, rights to balance diet, clothing, shelter and healthy life. Most of all the right to education. ” Some of these children are forced to work at a very young age about three to five years old by their parents. Often these parents become too dependent on their children up to the extent that they just stay home and let their children work and simply wait for the wages. But in some cases, parents do not really want their children stop going to school and work.
They try their best to earn in order to sustain the needs of the family but due to circumstances they have no choice but to let their children help them to earn a living. Because of child labour they don’t have a deep relationship with each other. “The family is, in fact, the community’s first socializing agency and the source of its strength and stability. ”20 It is here that the child learns obedience, cooperation, and respect for the rights of others. It is here also that the parents have constant occasions to rise above selfishness in responding to the needs of their children but still there are children engaged in child labour. All the children say they bear no grudge to their parents for letting them work, because they say, if they don’t all them will go hungry. ” If letting these children work is an answer to family’s poverty then this work which keeps them away from school will also perpetuate their poverty. Without an education these children and their families are doomed to stay on this generation cycle forever. Self 1) Every child is endowed with the dignity and worth of a human being from the moment of his conception, as generally accepted in medical parlance, and has, therefore, the right to be born well. ) Every child has the right to a wholesome family life that will provide him with love, care and understanding, guidance counselling, moral, and material security. The dependent or abandoned child shall be provided with the nearest substitute for a home. Every child has the right to a well-rounded development of his personality to the end that he may become happy, useful and active member of the society. The gifted child shall be given the opportunity and encouragement to develop his special talent.
The emotionally disturbed or socially maladjusted shall be treated, with sympathy and understanding, and shall be entitled to treatment and competent care. Every child has the right to a balanced diet, adequate clothing, sufficient shelter, and proper requirement of a healthy vigorous life. Every child has the right to be brought up in an atmosphere of morality and rectitude for the enrichment and strengthening of his character. Every child has the right to an education commensurate with his abilities and the development of his skills for the improvement of his capacity in service for himself and for his fellowmen.
Every child has the right to a full opportunity and wholesome recreation and activities, individual as well as social, for the wholesome use of his leisure hours. Every child has the right to protection against exploitation, improper influence, hazards, and other conditions or circumstances prejudicial and other moral development. Every child has the right to live in a community and a society that can offer him an environment free from pernicious influences and conducive to the promotion of his health and the cultivation of his desirable traits and attributes.
Every child has the right to the care, assistance, and protection of the state particularly when his parents and or guardians fail or unable to provide him with his fundamental needs for growth, development, and improvement. Every child has the right to an efficient and an honest government that will deepen his faith in democracy and inspire him with the morality of the constituted authorities both in their public and private life.
Every child has the right to grow up as a free individual, in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, tolerance, and universal brotherhood, and with the determination to contribute his share in the building of a better world. It was said that children have rights, but then again, due to child labour, these so called rights are violated and somehow taken away from them. The children are fully aware of their situations, the fact is that child labourers are the most prone to abuse and hazardous working conditions, since they are more docile for they will do any difficult work. According to the International Labour Organization, about 2. 2 million children were exposed to hazardous environment; 1. 8 million reported hazardous physical environment. In 1995, some thirty-five thousand (35,000) Filipino children aged five to seventeen (5-17) reported they have suffered from work-related injuries or illnesses. ” “Another survey resulted that in every one hundred (100) injured or sick children; approximately three (3) had to stop working permanently because of the illness or injury suffered. ” This only shows that the health of these individuals is at stake.
Since they are still young, their resistance is not strong also they are really prone to sickness and this may lead to their death. The dangers to their lives are obvious and extreme: long term psychosocial damage, corruption of moral and spiritual values, the risks of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, including the threat of physical violence and abuse. Children in immediate danger are those suffering from physical, mental and emotional harm. Being forced to work also deprives them of education. The most brutalized are the child prostitutes, many of whom recover from physical and emotional trauma.
Proper care is the best investment that the elders could give to the young in building up a batter world in one’s country who gives priority to its children is indeed blessed and its future as sure. It must be realized that in the cycle of life, the children are next in line. D. Government on Child Labor From the time of the late Ferdinand Marcos up to now, many laws were approved to fight child labour. But as we can observe, there are still costs of working children. Filipinos can only dream of the day when no child is deprived of education and normal childhood.
The government has tried to curb child labour, pushing for the enforcement of age limits in the work place, providing protection for young workers. The efforts have largely failed because of the lack of muscles to back up these laws. 1) Efforts “Every children has given a right to live a normal life, the rights of a children began with the League of Nations, adoption of the general declaration of the rights of a child in 1924”. In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly approved a universal declaration of human rights within which the rights of children were implicitly included. The United Nations declaration of the rights of the child was added by 1959. ” Children have been enshrined in our country and in our constitution. “Meaningful steps are now being taken for promulgation of a consolidated children’s chapter that will ensure the adoption of policies and practices in child care in keeping with the spirit of the law. ” The aspirations, the people, the culture of the country and reflect the ideas adumbrated in the universal declaration of the rights of a child.
It is an offense to abandon or expose a child under the age of two years whereby the life of such child is permanently injured. “In the Philippine Constitution it was stated that the state shall strengthen the family as a basic social institution. The natural right and duty of parents in rearing of the youth for civic efficiency and development of moral character shall receive the aid and support of the government. It was also said that the government equally share in the inherent right and duty of parents in training of their children to be good useful and worthy citizens. After the People Power Revolution, “President Corazon Aquino signed the International Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Participation of Children in the 1989 World Summit and the Philippines, early on, ratified the Convention of the Rights of the Child. Their department has a special program called “Sagip Batang Manggagawa” literally meaning “Save the Child Labourer. ” This particularly refers to children in bonded or force environment and to those difficult and hazardous circumstances. They pursue to rescue victims and prosecute erring recruiters and employers. Last November 9, 1993, President Ramos signed a law prohibiting the employment of children below 15 years old. However, it allows employment of children of the said age if they work directly under the management and the responsibility of parents. ”30 The House of Representatives has approved two child friendly bills. “One slaps a maximum penalty of 12 years in prison and a fine of P500, 000 against the parents or legal guardians and employers of persons eighteen years old and below who are forced to do hazardous jobs.
The bill also qualifies as hazardous jobs to those related to farming, hunting, logging, mining, quarrying, transport and navigation, construction and craftsmanship, and production processing occupations that call for the handling of heavy equipment like cables and semi-conductors. The bill makes no mention of child actors and commercial models who might also be subjected to long hours of work. ”31 In 1995, our senate ratified International Labour Organization Convention Number 138 on the minimum age for the administration for employment. “President Fidel V.
Ramos signed a new law creating a Family and Children’s Court. ”32 In hope to effectively implement this new pillar of justice on behalf of children, including victims of child abuse and intolerable child labour cases. Globalization is upon us with the benefits and perils of liberalized trade. As demonstrated by the foreign currency speculators’ attack on the Philippine Peso and other Asian currencies, the gains of a decade could be wiped out in a matter of days. We have lost money and precious resources for workers, for businesses, for schools, and even for public services.
It is obvious that children’s welfare have been jeopardized as well. Even as we faced the old evils of child labour, we see new ones emerging from the global market place. Global march against child labour launched – “A historic event unfolds in Manila last January 17, 1998, with a launching of a “Global March against Child Labour”, an international campaign to champion the cause of some 250 million children worldwide who are forced to work for survival. ” 33 Unprecedented in Philippine history, incumbent President Ramos and former President Aquino are taking the lead of the campaign launching.
These are just a few of the efforts and laws promulgated by the government but are these policies really implemented? 2. Inefficiency Obviously, the government has so many laws and bills approved but just the same, exploitation of child labour in the Philippines continue inspire of adequate laws enacted in the past fifty years to put a stop tot the practice. According to one survey only a few of these are really implemented or bear little result and another reason for its continued existence is because of the low par enforcement of laws providing protection to the minor workers.
It is also pointed that the government has the means to drastically reverse the situation- the revised labour code; violations of those provisions are now treated as criminal offenses. It was stated in the Philippine Constitution, Article II section 4 that the government equally share in the responsibility of the parents in supporting the children but the fact is the government don’t share even just a little bit. What really is disturbing is that President Aquino during her time signed a law which allowed children below 15 years of age work.
It was only in 1993, the time of Ramos that he removed and changed this law. “According to the ILO their true mission is to bring the attention of the government officials to end the different forms of child labour. They also result and another reason for its continued existence is because of the low par enforcement of laws providing protection to the minor workers. It is also pointed that the government has the means to drastically reverse the situation- the revised labour code, violations of those provisions are now treated as criminal offenses. 34 It was stated in the Philippine Constitution, Article II section 4 that the government equally share in the responsibility of the parents in supporting the children but the fact is the government don’t share even just a little bit. What really is disturbing is that President Aquino during her time signed a law which allowed children below 15 years of age work. It was only in 1993, the time of Ramos that he removed and changed this law. “Article 139 states that no child below fifteen years of age shall be employed and no case allow the employment of person below 18 years in an undertaking which is hazardous of deleterious in nature. If this is so why are there still children engaged in hard labour. “According to the ILO their true mission is to bring the attention of the government officials to end the different forms of child labour. They also said that the government is trying with little success to control child labour. Many local officials ignore child labour problems because they do not want to offend parents with working children. “35 It was noted that most of the politicians seeking public office are campaigning on the issues of law and order, economic reform and morality and honesty in the government.
No one speaks of children-why it is important to educate, feed and house every Filipino child. It has not occurred to them that the stability is not possible in a world where children are deprived of human rights. A system that tolerates the enslavement of children in work places and the exploitation of young spawns conditions of violence, crime and disease. Word Count: 4087 One of the major problems of child labour is the continuous plaque that Philippines is at poverty. Despite the said efforts of both government and business firms many Filipinos remain in need.
It is not a simple problem because now days we are facing mass poverty. For all the magnificent testimonies to man’s superior skill and intellect in producing today’s level of cultural development, he still has to find the solution to mass poverty. Whether the government would admit it or not, it is very clear even with our bare eyes that we our suffering a lot from poverty. But what is poverty anyway? Let first define poverty so we can have a clear understanding with what are we going to discuss. From a Webster dictionary, poverty means ‘lack of money or material possessions’. While from the book of Villegas entitled ‘Guide to
Economics for Filipinos’ he stated that poverty or being poor means ‘experiencing a low quality of life deprived of both the material and non material requirements that allow an individual to live like a human being’. According to ‘Addison Wesley Economics’ by Richard M. Hodgetts’ said most of people regard poverty as ‘a condition in which people are unable to buy the minimal amount of food, clothing and shelter that is required for existence’. Over all there are a lot of ways to define poverty, it depends on how the person thinks or how does the person relate it to his life personal experiences.
With all our efforts and patience why did we choose this topic? Obviously there are a lot more economic problems or short comings could be discussed and in fact lot easier, but our group tend to dig the deepest difficulties face by the Filipinos now a day, we fell with the same root. That is poverty, bottom line we choose this status quo to begin with our research because it is significant in relation to current issues in society. It is very obvious in our bare wide eyes and far cry conscience. To start with we tried to do face to face survey, observation, documentation and research with the best of our skills.
We tried to focus our investigation in the most vital issues. Let’s look at three concepts of poverty: first relative poverty, second absolute poverty and last poverty according to the perception of the people themselves. Relative poverty pertains to those whose income or consumption share is at the bottom 4500 or the population. Absolute poverty measures the capacity to meet specific minimum needs. This refers to the commonly used phrase “poverty lines”. And the last type measures poverty according to perceived minimum needs the satisfaction of which would make a family consider itself as being non-poor.
We based our research more on the second and third concept. The threshold Family income is the level of incomes that provides at least the minimum requirements consistent with the dignity of the workers and his family as human beings. It is above what needed for mere survival and should therefore provide enough food, clothing, shelter, education, health and personal care, security savings for emergencies, savings for unemployment and old age, and eventually, something a man can call his own, a piece of property. In this topic we tried to cultivate the main reason or roots of child labour are poverty.
We tried to witness the undying agony of the poor. We tried to listen with their long vulgar emotions that pulling them apart from success yet continuously pushing them to the deepest level of poverty line. We tried to analyze the different perception of human beings about their way of living. We tried to emphasize the causes and effect of poverty. Less that we could do we tried to give some ways how to eliminate poverty. What are the things we could do to neither have a better living nor somehow eliminate poverty? But the biggest question left unanswered.
Can we still eliminate poverty? Was there a chance for survival? Most of all the huge echo that stroke us left our hearts with pain and hope. Who’s to blame with our sufferings, which’s to blame with our unending despair? Is it the government fault? Or are we all responsible for these shame and despair we’re facing? Articles and Provision News articles from a range of years had identical the same write-ups about poverty, no changes at all…it’s still as rampant as of 2001 up to now. And they had similar reasons why it still goes on.
Urban bias in public investment for infrastructure and provision of safety nets; implicit taxation of agricultural products and an overvalued exchange rate; direct taxation of agricultural exports and imports subsidies; subsidies for capital intensive technologies; favouring export crops over food crops; breakdown of law and order; ill defined property right or unfair enforcement of rights to agricultural land and other natural resources; high concentration of land ownership; corrupt politicians and rent-seeking government officials; poor employment throughout the country; unsuccessful rationalizing of the allocating government assistance; lack of opportunity; lack o f security; and lack of empowerment, are among the thousands of reasons given by the news articles we had researched-including the surveys we conducted, that causes poverty to our country and to us Filipinos, individually.
Base on the survey we had conducted, we heard and known what our fellow Filipinos assume as reasons or causes of poverty in the Philippines. Same answers came out such as: because of graft and corruption, the way or system practice by our government officials, poor governance of the administration, lack of education, lack of investment, unemployment, underemployment, overpopulation, no cooperation among Filipinos, idleness and lack of discipline. On our face to face survey, we asked the Filipinos such question as ‘Why Philippines is drowning in poverty? ’ Based on the result, out of 135 despondences, 38% of it believes that corruption is the reason of poverty. 9% believe that lack of government support, 18% believe it’s because of over population. While the 16% of it said that it is because of our own fault, considering that we have bountiful resources yet we don’t know how to use it properly, it is also obvious to each one of us that we lack discipline, we don’t follow the laws in our homeland and we are contented where we are, we don’t even tried to strive for a change. 5% of it said it is because of unemployment, so the families suffer from hunger and lack of basic needs simple because they don’t have enough income. The other 3% stated that it is because of lack of education and the last 1% claim that it is because of lack of investment.
We follow up it with such question as ‘Are you experiencing lack of financial assistance or lack material things right now? Same 135 despondences, not surprisingly 107 number of despondences or 79% of it said ‘YES’ without a blink of an eye. Amazingly 28 number of despondences or 21% of it answered ‘NO’. It is clear now that higher number of Filipinos is experiencing lack of financial support and lack of material needs. As a result we tried to question the society how did they come up with such answer. We tried to picture out their everyday way of living, seems like we were watching a film. That was and still their opinion and perception about poverty. Let us now flip the coin, if there were causes of poverty of course there were effects of it.
We tried to swim into the deepest effect of poverty to family’s, to children, to working men and women, to students, to government employees, to ordinary citizen and to those people who claim the street as their hell of paradise. Whether we like it or not, admit or not, poverty strikes in us all. Let’s first discuss the effect of the main cause, as they said it loud and clear, “CORRUPTION”. 25 % of the Annual National Budget ends up in corruption. (PS Link) Philippines is the most corrupt in Asia (PERC, 2007) The effect of corruption on the poor can be gauged through both its direct impact, (example, increasing the cost of public services, lowering their quality and often all together restricting for peoples access to such essential services as water, health and education. ) and the indirect impact (example, diverting ublic resources away from social sectors and the poor, and through limiting development, growth and poverty reduction), while this impacts negatively on most of the segment of society, it is suggested that the poor are more vulnerable both in terms of being easy targets for being subjected to extortion, bribery, double-standards and intimidations as well as in terms of being hit by the negative impact of corruption, there is also country’s overall development processes. Corruption affects income inequality and poverty: as well as economic efficiency corruption can also have distributional consequences. This affects income inequality and poverty by reducing economic growth, the progressives of the tax system, the level and effectiveness of social programs, and by perpetuating an unequal distribution of asset ownership and unequal access to education. Government support for the public educational system has been declining and this is manifested by the severe shortages besetting the sector. We have small and filthy classrooms, we conquer poor education as a result we became poorer and poorer.
The government lack of support affects our daily life, we encounter poor infrastructure, heavy traffics due to poor quality of our roads, unemployment, spreading diseases, expensive medicines, high tuition fees, high cost of living, and taxes. Not only to that just last year the whole country was shocked and panicked with the news that came to town. We had had a rice shortage, how come we encountered that, considering that our country is blessed by abundant natural resources; we have a good land for agriculture. But of course due to lack of government support we can’t have a better use of it. Hence that government doesn’t give enough support to our farmers for agriculture.
If we give this amount to our farmers in the form of fertilizers, insecticide, seedlings, irrigation and other support services, they will be able to produce more than the required rice supply. Overpopulation has numerous detrimental consequences, mainly to the environment and to the society. Nature is finite, and therefore, can only support a limited number of individuals. Natural resources like food, water, and even energy are slowly running out because of the increasing consumption rate. On the other hand, the number of garbage people are producing is escalating, which leads to land, air, and water pollution. The overpopulation crisis also gives way to shortage of jobs, supplies, space. D. LACK OF EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT · 1 in 10 Filipinos has never gone to school (6. million) (Education Network Quick Stats, 2003) · 1 in 6 Filipinos is not functionally literate (9. 6 million), · 4. 1 million Filipinos are complete illiterate. · 1 in 3 children/ youth is not attending school (11. 6 million) · About half (51%) of Filipinos had Elementary Education at most · Among poor Filipinos, only about 70% can read, write and compute. · Only a little over half (54. 3%) are fully literate · Among non-poor Filipinos, 45. 3% have completed at least basic education. · In contrast, only 14. 3% have achieved this level of education among the rural poor Filipinos. One more child out of every 10 school-age children was not able to go to school, highlighting the need for higher government spending in social services.
Figures from the Department of Education (DepEd) show that participation rate at the elementary level, or the percentage of children aged 7-12 who are enrolled in public and private elementary schools, has fallen from 96. 95% in SY 1999-2000 to 83. 22% in SY 2006-2007. At the secondary level, only 58. 59% of children aged 13-16 were enrolled in high schools in SY 2006-2007 from 65. 43% in SY 1999-2000. Copy from Census-based projections, the net participation rate of education in elementary was 83. 22% as of school year 2006-2007. E. UNEMPLOYMENT: When a responsible father can’t give his family’s basic needs he come across self destruction and he feel dump. The effect of unemployment is not only seen in the hopeless face of the jobless but also to the way of living of his children. Joblessness is certain to increase this year and in 2009 and add to the 4. million unemployed– estimated to include the jobless statistically removed from the labour force to lower officially reported figures– and 6. 8 million underemployed as of 2007. IBON feature F. LACK OF INVESTMENT: The effect of lack of investment is clear and seen to our economic crisis. Since the reputation of our country is more likely unenviable to investors we lack the income for our economic growth. Investors have a doubt in investing their businesses in our country and relying to our government’s ability to support them with their transactions. As a result we now have a huge number of Filipino’s with no jobs or income. G. LACK OF DISCIPLINE AND IDLENESS: Filipinos have difficulty dealing with all forms of impersonal stimuli.
For this reason one is uncomfortable with bureaucracy, with rules and regulations, and with standard procedures–all of which tend to be impersonal. We ignore them or we ask for exceptions. Our lack of discipline often results in inefficient and wasteful work systems, the violation of rules leading to more serious transgressions, and a casual work ethic leading to carelessness and lack of follow-through. We are impatient and unable to delay gratification or reward, resulting in the use of short cuts, skirting the rules (the palusot syndrome) and in foolhardiness. We are guilty of ningas cogon, starting out projects with full vigour and interest which abruptly die down, leaving things unfinished. Kanya-Kanya Syndrome.
Filipinos have a selfish, self-serving attitude that generates a feeling of envy and competitiveness towards others, particularly one’s peers, who seem to have gained some status or prestige. Towards them, the Filipino demonstrated the so-called “crab mentality”, using the levelling instruments of tsismis, intriga and unconstructive criticism to bring others down. There seems to be a basic assumption that another’s gain is our loss. Some Filipinos are contented with their life now, they are always blaming and cursing others but they don’t see their own faulty. Some are too lazy to find a job or to strive for a better living that’s why they become poorer and poorer. H. CHILD LABOR
It is the children that suffer most from poverty. Everyday we see a huge number of children wandering the dangerous street of Manila selling cigarettes, candies, rags, or even wiping your shoes when you ride in on a jeepney then asking for alms. It is very crucial and heart breaking to witness. Yet sometimes we ignore in result they suffer a lot more. Every child has the right to the most basic of necessities in life like a healthy environment, formal education, and most importantly, a loving family to come home to. Yet, poverty hinders the child to any of these things and forces labour in farming fields, mining shafts and peddling in the busy and dangerous streets of the country.
The child has the right to be protected from work that threatens his or her health, education or development. The State shall set minimum ages for employment and regulate working conditions. Children have worked for as long as families have needed all hands to pitch in. Beyond defining work as a means of survival, however, defining what work is appropriate for children and what (if anything) to do about inappropriate work involves more complex judgments—especially for firms doing business in the global economy. The International Labor Organization estimates that around the world 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen work, about 120 million of them fulltime.
Some of these children work in factories and other workplaces in the formal economy, but the vast majority work in informal enterprises, agriculture and in homes. International firms are part of this economy not only if they hire children, but also if they buy goods or services from children or from companies that make such purchases. International business has come under increased pressure from social activists, trade unions and others to help find new solutions to end exploitative work for children and to help them get the education and training they need to become productive adults. Companies in the spotlight include respected multi-national corporations as well as many other lesser-known businesses. Child labor is linked to global business directly and, more commonly, indirectly.
Critics blame increased trade and Financial flows for increased child labor and those criticisms have undermined the legitimacy of further trade and financial liberalization. Companies—including multinationals Such as Nike, Wal-Mart, IKEA and the Brazilian subsidiaries of U. S. and European automobile manufacturers —have responded with a range of initiatives. Unless business responses alleviate the worst forms of child labor, the legitimacy of continued trade and financial liberalization will continue to be undermined by perceptions that liberalization disproportionately hurts children, especially child workers. LAWS Countries had passed laws against child labor, at least in industry. Child labor had declined in developed countries in any case, due to a combination of several factors.
These include the increasing sophistication of technology in the workplace (reducing the demand for low-skilled workers), greater productivity and consequently higher wages (reducing the need to send children to work instead of school) and higher school attendance (reducing the supply of child labor). Child labor re-emerged as a public concern in the 1980s and 1990s. This time, worry was expressed across a broad spectrum of opinion—from United Nations agencies, to non-governmental organizations, educators, social workers, trade unions, cause-driven investors, and the news media—that “globalization” was increasing the incidence Of child labor. 2 this time, “child labor” meant more than only children in industry. “Child labor” is now understood to mean children working in both the formal and informal economic sectors, in legal work and illegal occupations such as bonded labor, slavery, soldiering, and prostitution.
That poses a new question: What kind of “child labor” should be of concern to international business? From the disparate groups mentioned above has This emerged a global campaign to eradicate child labor. One of the best-known parts of this campaign involves an effort to ban from international trade goods made by children. This linkage between child labor and trade makes child labor at least an indirect concern for many businesses. Even if firms do not themselves employ children, they operate within a global system of commerce, manufacturing, procurement and trade that—in part—do. The balance of this paper explores the business economics of child labor in four parts.
The first part outlines three dimensions of business links—direct and indirect —to child labor. The second part discusses the basic question that must be answered before any further discussion begins: What is child labor? Defining the difference between all child work and “child labor” is key to any assessment of the scope of the problem as well as appropriate Responses. The paper then discusses the basic economics of child labor and some of the ways in which economic theory fails to account for the actual political economy of child labor. The next section presents examples of industries and firms that have been accused of using, or benefiting from child labor, and how some have responded to the criticism.
This section will draw from the previous discussions to assess trade and child labor. The Economics of Child Work The economics of child work involves supply and demand relationships on at least three levels: the supply and demand of labor on the national (and international) level; the supply and demand of labor at the level of the firm or enterprise; the supply and demand for labor (and other functions) in the family. But a complete picture of the economics of child labor cannot be limited to simply determining supply and demand functions, because the political economy of child labor varies significantly from what a simple formal model might predict.
Suppose a country could effectively outlaw child labor. Three consequences would follow: (1) the families (and the economy) would lose the income generated by their children; (2) the supply of labor would fall, driving up wages for adult workers; and (3) the opportunity cost of a child’s working time would shrink, making staying in school (assuming schools were available) much more attractive. In principle, a virtuous circle would follow: with more schooling, the children would get more skills and become more productive adults, raising wages and family welfare. 20 To the extent that the demand for labor is elastic, however, the increase in wages implies that the total number of jobs would fall.
The labor supply effects are the basic outline of the logic that underlies almost all nations’ laws against child labor, as well as the international minimum age standard set in ILO Convention 138 and much of the anti-child labor statements during the recent protests against the World Trade Organization, World Bank and International Monetary Fund. This model does describe in very simplified form the long-term history of child work in the economic development of developed economies. But in the short-term, the virtuous circle seldom occurs in real life as quickly as the simple, static model suggests. The reason for the model’s short-term failure is that child work results from a complex interweaving of need, tradition, culture, family dynamics and the availability of alternative activities for children.
History suggests that children tend to work less, and go to school more, as a result of several related economic and social trends. Some of the reasons why children work were discussed earlier. They point to a truism that is often overlooked in discussions about the economics of child labor: the political economy of a place plays at least as big a part as per capita income in determining the level of child labor there. But national wealth alone does not determine, and cannot explain, incidence of child work and proportion of children in the work force. At higher levels of GDP per capita, the relationship between the proportion of children in the labor force and per capita GDP is not as easily predicted.
The World Bank has no strong explanation for this looser association between national wealth and children in the work force, apart from a possible statistical anomaly and “cultural differences. ” The closest association (or best “predictor”) of proportion of children in the work force in an economy is the structure of production: child work is more likely to occur in economies with a greater share of agriculture in GDP. 22 • The incidence of child work reflects the structure of the local economy. Of the 250 million working children, sixty-one percent are in Asia, thirty-two percent in Africa, and seven percent in Latin America. That makes some intuitive sense in that the bulk of the world’s population is in Asia.
The disproportionately large percentage of child workers in Africa, however, is due to the high proportion of children in the labor Force—about two out of five. • Although child labor is most strongly correlated with poverty, child work also is partially determined by local structures of economy, finance and production, as well as cultural norms and practices. Children are more likely to work, for instance, if they are from poor, minority or culturally marginalized populations. Girls are more likely to work in the home and many informal enterprises unregulated by law. Girls are also more likely, in many cultures, to be denied schooling. A more complete list of determinants of child labor includes age, gender, family size, distance to and cost of schooling and parents’ educational status.
Also, child work is highly correlated with the incidence of family enterprises—but families who have their own enterprises are not always the poorest in their region. Businesses using increasingly sophisticated technology demanded workers with more education and literacy, and greater industrial productivity led to higher incomes for those workers. The payoff for becoming a literate adult worker rose; and, therefore, so did the incentive for children to stay in school. Education is the most oft-cited “solution” to child labor. Compulsory education laws, as well as the implementation of those laws and the provision of schools, helped reduce child work simultaneously and arguably were a precondition for later, rapid economic growth. Perhaps the most influential study on this trend was by Myron Weiner (1991).
Weiner argued that actively taking children out of the work force and putting them into schools helped to lay the foundation for subsequent economic growth that further reduced child work. Weiner’s emphasis on the importance of compulsory education laws has been widely challenged, but there is widespread agreement among child labor researchers on one point of this thesis: that even countries with relatively low per capita GDP could improve their human capital, boost their economic growth prospects and improve the lives of their citizens by providing affordable, appropriate and accessible education to all. In addition, there is widespread agreement among economists that the failure to educate children tends to retard national economies.
Schools alone will fail to mitigate child labor if they are inaccessible, open at inappropriate hours of the day, offer poor teaching and teach subjects that students and their parents do not think will help children more than the skills a child can pick up on the job. The political economy of a place plays at least as big a part as per capita income in determining the level of child labor there. side the home and/or increases the social value associated with attending school. Historians of childhood, beginning with the groundbreaking work of Philippe. In pre-modern days, childhood was not a separate period of life, and children were expected to work both inside and outside the home. Modern, Western concepts of childhood hold that childhood is a period that should be filled mostly with school and play, and many types of work are inappropriate or even morally wrong.
The clash between modern and traditional views of work as a natural activity for children results in some of the disagreements about how to define “child labor,” discussed above. Beyond these general trends, economists, anthropologists and sociologists have explored in detail the family level or supply side of child work. Two important insights have emerged to describe the relationship of child work to education. One is that excluding children from the formal sector does not preclude them from working, or more to the point, from working in hazardous or harmful conditions. Nor does excluding children from the formal sector automatically make them choose to go to school instead of to work.
The second insight is that excluding children from formal sector work or from work generally, can actually decrease their welfare if their only reasonable alternative is to work in a less well paid job or in worse conditions. That was the case in the Bangladesh example mentioned above. Business Responses to Criticism in the 1990s At the beginning of the 1980s, the governments of many developing nations denied that their economies contained child labor, and businesses followed suit. By the 1990s, the expanded definition of child labor discussed above was becoming more accepted, and governments began admitting that child labor existed in their economies. By the end of the century, the dominant question at the ILO was no longer how to get governments to admit that child labor existed, but how to implement programs to help children.
While the ILO has taken almost two decades to conclude how to handle the problem of child labor, firms face a more demanding time-frame and are more vulnerable to suffering short-term consequences from falsely or mistakenly denying that child labor exists in their operations or those of their suppliers. A range of private-sector programs dealing with child labor will be reviewed here, followed by a brief discussion about whether any of these efforts is more than a drop in the bucket of children’s needs. One note about the costs of implementing these programs: when these responses required an expenditure of company resources, management must have decided that the costs were outweighed by the potential benefit to the company’s image or ability to withstand criticism. Moreover, using children to keep labor costs down may not be the most efficient labor strategy in any case. An American businessman recently told me that the production lines at the plants making his product require twice as many workers as those plants in the country from which he had moved, underscoring the aphorism that cheap labor is not necessarily inexpensive labor,” said a labor attache from the US Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia. The responses of international business to child labor are of three basic, non-exclusive types: Many companies adopted independent strategies to help children directly or in their communities. These included payments to programs to help children (hospitals, schools). Often, they involved adoption of a company code of conduct barring the use of children in the making of company products. Levi Straus & Co. laims to have started the codes-of-conduct trend, with its 1991 Global Sourcing and Operating Guidelines. 30 Although most do not specify codes of conduct only for the purpose of curbing child labor, almost all prohibit the employment of children in company operations or in the operations of suppliers. Many codes of conduct have been criticized for being hard for outsiders to monitor, and therefore, for amounting to little more than window-dressing. Relatively few companies have voluntarily gone beyond such a code to ensure that children removed from the workplace were placed in a school or into other training. Excluding the children from the formal sector does not preclude them from working, even in harmful conditions.
Nor does excluding children from the formal sector automatically make them go to school instead of to work. Labeling Programs Some companies began using labels on their products to indicate that they were not made by children or were made by a company that supported children’s programs. There are at least four labels on the market now, some of which are attached to rugs themselves, and others are displayed in retail stores: • Many carpet importers in Germany (and a limited number in other countries) contribute money to a program called Care & Fair that builds schools in communities where carpets are made. Care & Fair members may display a label in their premises but not on their products. Other carpet importers in Germany and North America, and manufacturers in South Asia, belong to “Rugmark,” which puts a sticker on the backs of carpets made by purportedly child-free workshops. Many children removed from these workshops have been put into schools. • STEP, a based program, promotes “voluntary responsibility “on the part of producers and importers. STEP maintains a list of producers and sellers of carpets that meet its voluntary guidelines. Retailers that purchase from these suppliers can display A STEP label in their stores. • India’s quasi-government Carpet Import Promotion Council puts the “Kaleen” label on India-made rugs. CIPC-labeled rugs purport to indicate that anufacturers follow a code of conduct that they claim will eventually eliminate child labor in the industry. By contrast, labels developed by the Abrinq Foundation for Children’s Rights in Brazil are awarded to companies after they both adopt codes of conduct and contribute money to help children’s programs. Abrinq does not claim to guarantee that goods or services have not been provided by children. The labels are linked to national awareness campaigns that map out connections of everyone in society to child labor. Abrinq convinced the automobile industry to sign on, for instance, after finding examples of child labor in products of the auto manufacturers’ suppliers’ suppliers.
Abrinq has developed industry- wide agreements in the orange juice, shoe manufacturing and sugar cane industries as well. Not all have been equally successful—in part because industries have not always been receptive to the idea that they should take responsibility for improving work conditions for workers on the bottom rungs of the procurement pyramid. One more type of label is the “fair trade” family of labels. They indicate that the products have been produced by farmers with access to a private price-support system and a cooperative lending scheme through which they can borrow money at more affordable rates than are available from local banks or loan sharks.
Although these programs were not designed specifically to reduce child labor, they can help farm families keep their incomes healthy enough so that they can afford to keep their children in school. “Fair trade” labels have been fixed to coffee in the U. S. and to tea, chocolate, coffee, bananas and orange juice in Europe. One problem with labels is that they are easily counterfeited. 36 Another is that the labels rarely explain the entire scope of the program that stands behind them. And those programs are often not monitored by independent monitors who can verify their claims (although the standard of monitoring seems to be improving). 37 Relatively few companies have acted voluntarily to ensure that children removed from the workplace were placed in a school or other training also several problems in their implementation.
For example, in Sialkot, families whose mothers and children left work suffered a twenty percent fall in income (Economist, 2000). Some social workers and non-governmental organizations think some aspects, such as income-replacement subsidies for children taken out of work and put into schools, may be too expensive to replicate on a large scale. The program that was implemented in Bangladesh had to be adapted to Sialkot and Lahore and might have to be adapted elsewhere to allow for local conditions. For instance, both parents and children may benefit more from a part-time-work, part-time-school arrangement than from a plan that involves complete substitution of school for work. 0 In any case, programs will have to account for both the need for children to become educated and their need to survive. As one Bangladeshi boy put it, “I could go to school, but then who would feed my mother and sister? And who would pay for my sister to go to school? ”Which brings the discussion to this: if the problem is so big, what will make the most difference to the most child laborers? Children working in exports are a tiny percentage, perhaps less than five percent; of the total 250 million child workers. 42 they have received more attention in the press of Europe and North America than the bulk of child workers. And yet the focus on children in exports is significant.
Trade is and will be an important engine of growth in most developing countries. As discussed above, economic growth can help reduce child labor. As per capita GDP grows, child labor is expected to shrink—although, as discussed, the correlation between prosperity and reduced child labor is not entirely predictable at higher levels of per capita GDP. Children with jobs in the export sector may be working for higher salaries and in better conditions than their peers. Those child-workers who have been pushed out (because consumers in developed countries do not want to buy goods made by children) have complained that they were cheated of the best jobs they could get—both in terms of working conditions and pay. 3 Shutting children out of the developing world’s export sector as a way of protecting them is justifiable only if they can go on to better working conditions for the same or comparable pay or if they can go to a school arranged so that it does not interfere with work they must do for survival. Should social clauses be attached to trade treaties to keep child-made goods out of trade? Blanket trade sanctions can have disastrous unintended consequences, as demonstrated by the proposed Harkin Bill’s effect on children in Bangladesh’s garment industry. (“And who would pay for my sister to go to school? ”) Trade sanctions rarely are twinned with measures to mitigate their effects on children, and it is hard to say hether such mitigation would work, given the reports of unsustainable expenses and unintended consequences of Bangladesh and Sialkot mitigation plans. This paper has discussed three dimensions of the relationship between international business and child labor and has identified the distinction between acceptable child work and exploitative child labor. It has also presented the basic economics of child labor and strategies that companies have adopted to deal with complaints about their employment of children. It has pointed out several ways in which, despite the small percentage of child workers in trade, business should be concerned about the reports of child labor in the export economy.
Additionally, it has discussed strategies that a few firms and industries have used to reduce the presence of child labor in their operations and those of their suppliers. Some of these had direct benefits for former child workers. Businesses that want to continue to benefit from more open trading systems and more liberal financial markets would do well to take complaints about child labor in traded goods as a shot across the bow—along with the many other metaphorical shots fired by demonstrators who have protested against the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other multi-lateral finance agencies. Efforts to liberalize trade and finance are being undermined by a perception that a disproportionate percentage of globalization’s “losers” are poor children. 0 Certainly it is important to determine whether globalization has increased child work or has simply provided children with different, and possibly better, jobs. Any firm that confronts the issue of child labor must decide whether adopting one of the responses outlined above—or any other—will cost more than ignoring the issue. Ending child labor will require action on many levels: economic growth; laws and law enforcement; social mobilization; and building schools and making them affordable, accessible and appropriate. 51 The best programs will need to be made relevant to the specific conditions of a place, and of the children to be helped. We know of no case where a nation developed a modern manufacturing sector without first going through a ‘sweatshop’ phase, “according to David L. Lindauer. “If child labor is a necessary evil of industrialization, then a nation should be judged on how quickly it passes through this phase. ” But history need not predict the future. It should be possible to employ workers at competitive wages without also exploiting the youngest
