Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Judy M. Taguiwalo today announced that the DSWD and the Council for the Welfare of Children (CWC) as well as the National Youth Commission (NYC) will take the lead in celebrating the rights of children this November as the Philippines observes National Children’s Month.

The country has been observing the same since the passage of Republic Act 10661 which adopts the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child passed on November 20, 1989.

“The DSWD is one with the rest of the nation and all agencies of government in celebrating National Children’s Month.  However, as an agency that gives priority to the poorest of the poor, in the same vein do we recognize that the rights of children who come from the poor and marginalized sectors of Philippine society must be given priority,” she said.

The theme this year is “Isulong: Kalidad na Edukasyon Para sa Lahat ng Bata”.

Sec. Taguiwalo said that government agencies, civil society organizations,  individuals and private institutions concerned with children’s rights should focus their efforts on helping children from the poorest sectors.

“These are the children who come from urban poor communities, whose parents struggle with the greatest difficulty to find means of livelihood so they can feed their families and keep a roof over their heads,” she said.

“They are the ones we should give the most attention to as we promote programs that champion children’s rights – their right to be fed, clothed, protected from abuse and exploitation, and provided with the means to go to school and learn,” she said.

She cited an end-of-2015 survey that stated how  2.6M families have experienced involuntary hunger. A family with at least five members would have three children, and this means that 7.8 million children experience involuntary hunger.

The National Nutrition Council has also come up with a report stating that there are 4M children suffering from malnourishment; 3.4 million children have stunted growth; and, there are at least 300,000 who are categorized as severely malnourished.

“We must also give attention to the plight of children who become laborers at a very tender age. Many of them work in plantations, haciendas, and mines. Their rights as children are violated a thousand fold because they are subjected to backbreaking work, and exploited to the maximum because they are hardly paid,” she said.

Sec. Taguiwalo cited the baseline study published in 2015 by the Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education Research (EILER) that exposed how prevalent child labor is in many mines and plantations in various parts of the country. According to the EILER report, in plantation communities, about 22.5 percent of households have child workers. In mining communities, children comprised 14 percent of labor.   The group was able to interview children as young as five years old working in mines; in the meantime, their findings reveal that most children who work in the mines were 12 years old.

“Given their extreme poverty and their employment,   76 percent of child laborers no longer attend school.  Instead they work for 10 hours a day, or 13 to 16 hours a day in the more extreme cases,” she said.

Finally, Sec. Taguiwalo issued the reminder that the Philippines is signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

“We are committed to uphold this Convention, and to pursue all appropriate measures to ensure the protection of children and the implementation of the rights stated in the Convention.   Our efforts to change society must include and give priority to efforts to help children, most especially those who come from families who can barely address their own needs.  We must all work together to address the issues of  low wages, landlessness, widespread lack of  productive and sustainable means of livelihood, and lack of job security which affect majority of Filipinos so they themselves can become empowered to help their own families and their most vulnerable members – the children,” she said.#