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Issue
No. 22, January 2003
Emilia
Dapulang - Extremely Successful NZ Tour by KMU Leader
Globalisation
& Women Workers
The
George & Gloria Show
Keith
Locke's Letter to Netherlands PM
Why
Target Sison
Terrorism
Suppression Act Passed - Major Implications for
Solidarity Groups
Trade
Union Repression In The Philippines
The
Legacy Of The Second Front Of The War On Terror
Militant
Peasant Report
NZ,
Globalisation And Philippines Farmers
US
Global War On Terror
Voices of Women and Children
Changes
To The PSNA Committe
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Kapatiran Issue
No. 22, January 2003
VOICES
OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN
- Eileen Shewan
Women's Group Raps Government For
"Misusing" Gender Funds [Extracted from an
article by Desiree Caluza, published in Philippine
Daily Inquirer {PDI}, 8/3/02].
Baguio City - Militant women workers assailed Government
agencies and local government units for not using the
gender and development (GAD) funds to finance
women-related programmes. Tonette Dizon, secretary
general of the Confederation for Unity, Recognition and
Advancement of Government Employees (COURAGE), said no
Government agencies have efficiently used the GAD funds,
especially for programmes related to the anti-sexual
harassment law. "We noticed that Government agencies
do not use the GAD funds adequately for women related
projects, unless the militant women employees ask them to
do so," Dizon said during a forum.
She lamented that women employees cannot get support from
Government offices that handle GAD funds. She added that
the unions or non-government agencies are the ones that
support women employees who are victims of sexual
harassment. The GAD funds should have been used to
sponsor seminars on women issues and development.
During the forum with women's groups, women employees of
the National Food Authority said they do not know that a
budget had been allotted for gender-related projects.
Vernie Yocogan, secretary general of Innabuyog-Gabriela,
said the GAD funds were either used for other projects
such as sports festivals, ballroom dancing and parties.
"It is sad that the GAD funds are wasted on
insignificant projects. The result is people do not
change their views on women because of those trapo
(traditional politics) projects," Yocogan said.
Suffer The Children
PDI,
Editorial, 12/5/02
THERE is a secret darkerTHERE is a secret darker than the
sexual sins of priests, a crime more heinous than
kidnapping for ransom. It is the tragedy of child labour.
The practice of this open secret and brazen crime is
widespread in all countries, and the Philippines - home
to millions of devotees of the Child Jesus, a country
immensely loyal to its so-called child stars - is no
exception.
Of the 25 million Filipinos between the ages of five and
17, some four million are "economically
active," the National Statistic Office (NSO)
reports. That is bureaucratese for minors working for a
living. That also means that one out of every six
Filipino children has been forced to join the labour
force. The NSO report notes that most of the child
labourers are classifiable as unpaid, unskilled workers
in family farms and livelihood ventures. We can easily
picture the details: children selling banana-cue snacks
in open areas, children plying flower garlands on street
corners, children hawking sweepstakes tickets at church
entrances.
Other occupations are, well, less picturesque. The United
Nations Children's Fund office in the Philippines says as
many as 2.2 million Filipino children work in hazardous
conditions. Worse, anywhere between 60,000 and 100,000
minors are sexually exploited.
None of these children are there by choice, of course.
They have been dragged kicking and screaming into the
ranks of the economically active by the biggest
circumstance of all: poverty. Being poor is like charity;
it covers a multitude of sins. It helps explain why,
unlike wayward priests -- or for that matter any person
doing something illicit -- those who force children to
work do so openly, without apologies. Or why, unlike the
victims of kidnap-for-ransom gangs, child labourers are
effectively hostaged for life, and often by their own
kin.
We make a distinction, of course, between chores at home
or on the farm and child labour. Chores such as, say,
washing one's clothes are an important part of the
raising of children; they strengthen character. But
actual work, such as when a nine-year-old washes clothes
for a living, weakens character by stealing nothing less
than childhood from the child.
The NSO report also claims that many of the country's
working children say their schooling is not affected by
their work. That may very well be true, but perhaps for
reasons other than what might reasonably be expected.
Chances are, their schooling is not affected because they
no longer go to school at all.
Some 97% of Filipino children attend school between ages
six and 12. But fully 30% do not even finish sixth grade.
And the downtrend continues through high school and on to
college. Those who do juggle schooling and work at such a
tender age cannot be expected to excel, to rise above the
circumstances, either. It is difficult enough for a grown
man to balance the demands of his job with those of his
studies. What more a child?
The NSO and UNICEF numbers paint a dismal picture.
"The Philippines' achievement of the goals (set
after the 1990 World Summit for Children) has been
inconsistent," UNICEF representative Terrel Hill
said. Much more remains to be done, she added, citing the
need for "much more political will and concrete
multi-cultural action".
There is one indicator that the Macapagal Administration
should pay special attention to: the number of minors
conscripted into the sex industry. While they account for
only 2 to 3% of all child workers in the country, they
are the most at risk. They also symbolise all the evil
that is done to children. The President should devote
herself to dramatically cutting down their number--to
make a statement, yes, but also to help bring as many
children as possible out of the sex industry trap. We
suggest, in fact, that she include the statistic as a
regular feature of her annual State of the Nation
Address. It will demonstrate her commitment and monitor
her progress, but it will also push all Filipinos to take
a long, hard second look at the pernicious but widespread
practice of child labour.
From 'Vaginal' To 'Phenomenal'
[Extracted from an article by Rina Jimenez-David,
published in PDI,
14/5/02].
WHILE doing interviews for the book "Nightmare
Journeys", which features the true accounts of women
who had been trafficked into sex work here and abroad
(and not only survived but prevailed over their
situation), I was struck by how casually many of them
were lured into that line of work. For most, a distant
relative, a neighbour, or a friend of a friend dangled a
way out of poverty or an untenable family situation.
Three of them ran away from home and encountered
strangers who deceived or cajoled them to work in
brothels and in the akyat barko trade (prostitutes
servicing seafarers. Ed.). Others were even pushed
into the work by relatives, including one whose mother
shopped her around various clubs and sing-along joints
when she was just 14.
It was also fairly obvious from their accounts how easy
it was for their promoters, talent managers and/or
recruiters to circumvent all the laws, rules and
regulations governing the deployment of young women
abroad. A 13-year-old was simply made up and instructed
to dress in a sexy outfit so she could pass the
auditions. A 16-year-old showed up in Japan and was
immediately compelled to board the next plane back home.
Less than a month later, carrying a new passport with a
different name, she walked through Narita Airport
escorted by her Japanese promoter and went straight into
hostessing in a club. Before she met her Japanese
boyfriend, she had been pulled out of club work
altogether and was working as a full-time call girl.
THE 14 stories told in "Nightmare Journeys" are
multiplied a hundredfold, perhaps a thousandfold, in real
life. And as discussed in the columns on the
"vaginal economy", or how the otherwise
legitimate deployment of Filipino women as entertainers
has deteriorated into their massive trafficking into sex
work, the Government has long been caught in a bind
between regulating deployment to minimise if not
eliminate the outflow of young women, while at the same
time assisting women to find employment abroad and
devising means to protect them and ensure their rights
are respected. It has thus become a most delicate search
for balance, between respecting the women's right to find
work where they are able, and imposing enough controls to
prevent abuse and exploitation. The situation isn't
helped any by the loud clamour and pressure from other
interested parties, namely those who have been
profiting-legitimately or not-from the deployment of
women to clubs, bars and other such outlets abroad.
Willie Espiritu, the chairperson of an organisation of
talent promoters and managers, asserts that overseas
performing artists, as the women (and men) are officially
known, "are not vaginal commodities" but
"human beings deserving of respect and dignity (who)
need every protection from the State". But if he
believes his own assertion, then why does Espiritu's
organisation oppose the imposition of new rules and
regulations that are intended to strengthen the
accreditation process and the protection mechanisms for
the women here and abroad?
Espiritu says the deployment of overseas performing
artists (OPAs) should be deregulated right now, as the
players in the industry "know how to police the
sector that is their source of their bread and butter,
particularly for the much-maligned OPAs". "But
if deployment is their "bread and butter",
would they jeopardise their profits by making sure only
legitimate performers are deployed, and antagonise their
foreign principals by making sure the young women are not
abused or exploited?
Elizabeth Nieva, president of the Pangarap Foundation for
OPAs, writes to express her appreciation for the columns
on the "vaginal economy", noting that the
columns could not have been more timely "especially
now that the gates to such hell have been opened wider
with the court order restraining Government from imposing
controls on the deployment particularly of female
overseas performing artists. Constant exposure of the
issue, we believe, will go a long way in deterring the
illegals from further abusing our Filipina OPAs".
BUT illegal deployment and abuse at the hands of
employers is but "one side of the coin," adds
Nieva. "The other side ... shows Filipina OPAs
making good in their chosen career and giving the country
a good name". Nieva asserts that telling
"positive" stories of OPAs who have made good
is important "to restore to Filipino OPAs the
self-respect that many of them have lost on account on
the bad news and the derogatory 'Japayuki'* image that
they always read or see about themselves in the
media". * This is a derogatory term for
Filipinas who have gone to Japan to work in the sex
industry. Ed.
Promoting a positive self-image among Filipino OPAs, says
Nieva, is in fact just part of the mission that their
foundation is pursuing. Another part is advancing
advocacy on their behalf and "transform popular
perceptions of the vaginal economy into the real picture
of a phenomenal economy made so by the phenomenal
Filipino overseas performing talents." Nieva might
want to know that in the course of our interview, Lucy
Lazo, the beleaguered director-general of the Technical
Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA),
shared that among her dreams for the OPAs who come to
TESDA for testing and accrediting are genuine regional
training centres where young women and men could receive
serious training in all aspects of performance: singing,
dancing and acting. With so much natural talent
abounding, there is no reason why Filipinos could not
"invade" Broadway, Hollywood, and other
legitimate venues for entertainment and bring pride to
our country. We need only take our performing artists
seriously and work determinedly against any further
growth of the "vaginal economy."
The East Asian Crisis And Child Labour In The
Philippines
[The following extracts are
taken from a report commissioned by the International
Labour Organisation (ILO) as part of a research project
on the impact of the Asian financial crisis on child
labour. It was prepared in mid-1999. The author is
Professor of Economics at the University of the
Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City].
The Philippines has not been hit as hard as some other
Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries
by the East Asian economic and financial crisis. Per
capita incomes, however, have declined during the crisis
and there is grave concern about the impact of the crisis
on poverty and the social sector, especially children,
given the relatively low level of social and human
development achieved by the Philippines. The child labour
problem has definitely been aggravated by the crisis.
School enrolment, which is strongly correlated with child
labour, has been seriously affected by the crisis.
Initial enrolment figures from the Department of
Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) show a decline in
elementary school enrolment during the crisis. Based on
our estimates, gross enrolment rates in elementary
education fell from 99.2% in the school year 1997-98 to
98.1% in the school year of 1998-99. Our estimates reveal
that the number of children six to 12 years of age not
enrolled in elementary education increased from less than
100,000 (0.8% of children aged six to 12) in 1997 to
240,000 (1.9% of children aged six to 12) in 1998 as a
direct result of the crisis.
The situation in secondary schools is alarmingly worse.
The crisis year 1998-99 saw a big decline in high school
enrolment for both males and females in both public and
private high schools, with enrolment in private high
schools falling much faster.
Total high school enrolment actually started to fall in
school year 1997-98 (on the eve of the crisis) with a
slight decline in male high school enrolment. But the
sharp drop in enrolment in 1998-99 is obviously a direct
effect of the economic crisis in 1998. Total enrolment in
secondary schools fell by 7.2% in 1998. Male enrolment
fell by 6.6% while female enrolment fell by 7.7%. At the
same time, there was a switch from private schools to
public schools, reflecting a significant deterioration in
the quality of high school education. Our estimates
reveal that the number of children aged 13 to 16 not
enrolled in high school jumped from around 1.5 million
(23% of youths aged to 13 to 16) to two million (30% of
youths aged 13 to 16) as a direct result of the crisis.
The economic recession, however, has reduced the demand
for labour and increased the unemployment rates of
children aged ten to 14 and youths aged 15 to 17.
Particularly hard hit are young male workers in the urban
areas. Unemployment rates for young workers (for males
and females) in the urban areas exceeded 20% in October
1998 and run to as high as more than 30% for boys aged
ten to 14 and more than 40% for young men aged 15 to 17.
The rural areas have also seen increasing unemployment
due to the weather disturbances. Unduly affected are
female children and youths. The increasing unemployment
of children and youths actively seeking work is worrisome
since they become vulnerable to informal, illegal and
hazardous activities. Out-of-school unemployed youths are
also vulnerable to the dangers of drugs, juvenile
delinquency and other forms of violence.
Most child workers and young workers are unpaid family
workers in agriculture. The crisis has increased the
proportion of unpaid family workers in rural areas due to
the agricultural crisis. This increases the pool of
unemployed and underemployed among the youth and
reinforces the problem of unemployed youths discussed
earlier. Furthermore, the crisis has increased the share
of children and youths employed in wholesale and retail
trade and employed by private households. This encourages
the entry of young workers into the informal trade sector
with increased possibilities of market vending and street
selling. This raises issues concerning street children
and the informal sector where labour standards are hard
to monitor and implement.
Female youths in the urban centres are more exposed to
the trade sector and to community, social and personal
services as well. These sectors require longer hours and
have a higher proportion of full-time workers among the
young workers. More information and analyses in this area
are vital to track the growth and conditions of child
labour -- both male and female -- in the informal
sectors.
Extended Family System And Overseas Contract
Workers
The social security system is the traditional safety net
for unemployment and declining incomes in developed
countries. In the Philippines, the social security system
has limited funds, and is unable to cover adequately even
the emergency health needs of its members. It is not
prepared to provide unemployment and other benefits for
those displaced by the crisis.
Furthermore...fiscal tightness and expenditure cutbacks
are sure to constrain public sector capacity to provide
safety nets for the expected increase in poverty and
decline in social and human development. The main safety
net will have to be that provided by the extended family
system. Because of the economic decline and substantial
devaluation of the peso, overseas contract workers'
contributions to family incomes will become even more
urgently needed.
Reliance on the extended family system as a safety net
will generate its own social impacts. The increased
dependency burden, as laid-off and deprived individuals
and families pass on part of their problems to their
relatives, will further drain the resources of many
families. On the micro level, this is one reflection of
the decreased savings rate caused by stagflation. The
higher dependency burden will add to the plight of the
family head (and other income-generating members of the
family) as reduced real income is further diminished by
additional persons relying for subsistence from this
reduced income. The additional burden placed on the
housewife and mother, as she has to find ways to
accommodate more people on meagre resources and as her
childcare and household work multiply (as the size of the
extended household increases), is usually not considered.
Add to this the pressure on her to join the labour force
in order to supplement the family income, and she can be
subjected to tremendous stress, fatigue, and generally
unhealthy conditions.
Pressures on overseas contract workers (the majority of
whom are women) are also strong, as family members
increasingly rely on their remittances as a main means of
coping with the current crisis. At the same time,
opportunities and wages are dwindling in East Asia,
Europe, and the Middle East. Lim (1999) gives the number
of declining overseas workers and the decline in
remittances from East Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.
The only increased remittances, from North America, are
not from contract workers but rather from immigrants and
Filipino Americans already residing in the United States.
Many families will consider child labour as one coping
mechanism in the face of economic hardship and the
increased dependency burden.
The ILO's International Programme on the Elimination of
Child Labour (IPEC) has identified the following types of
working children as most vulnerable and most meriting
special attention:
• victims of child trafficking
• those in mining and quarrying
• those trapped in prostitution
• sugar-cane plantation workers
• vegetable farm workers
• pyrotechnics production workers
• children engaged in deep-sea diving
Most child workers and young workers are unpaid family
workers in agriculture. The crisis has increased the
proportion of unpaid family workers in rural areas due to
the agricultural crisis. This increases the pool of
unemployed and underemployed among the youth and
reinforces those problems associated with unemployed
youths discussed earlier. Furthermore, the crisis has
increased the share of children and youths employed in
wholesale and retail trade and those employed by private
households. This encourages the entry of young workers
into the informal sector, with increased possibilities of
market vending and street selling. This raises issues
concerning the difficulty of monitoring and implementing
labour standards with regard to street children and the
informal sector.
Even before the crisis, the Department of Education,
Culture and Sports (DECS) initiated a programme to ensure
enrolment and retention of elementary school students.
The DECS and local governments cooperate to identify
families with children of elementary school age. The
programme aims at early enrolment, wherein parents are
encouraged to enrol their children as early as the end of
January (the school year starts in June). The programme
also includes a policy of not rejecting any child seeking
enrolment in elementary education; and teachers are asked
to participate in neighbourhood outreach campaigns,
including six-year-olds in their recruitment drives
(until 1995, seven years was the minimum age for grade
1). The DECS programme needs to be intensified in this
period of intense economic difficulty.
The DECS also administers drop-out intervention
programmes for elementary school children, but, as of
late 1999, these remained in the pilot phase and were
being administered only in certain poor provinces. These
intervention programmes consist of financial support for
lunch, transportation, and other school expenses. They
are also coordinated with non-government organizations in
the balik-paaralan (Back to School) programme
for elementary school children.
The latest scheme, which is still in the planning and
initial pilot stage, is the adopt-a-class programme.
Here, the DECS tries to secure funds from donors for
certain classes in "child-friendly" schools to
support a one-student-one-book policy and to provide
school kits (including notebooks, workbooks, ball pens,
etc.) for elementary school children.
Elementary education in the Philippines is universal and
compulsory. Secondary education, on the other hand, has
been free for public schools only since 1994 and is not
compulsory due to insufficient public school facilities
and budget funds. DECS approaches for secondary school
facilities therefore differ from those for elementary
school children.
To encourage more students of high-school age to enrol in
secondary education, even if they cannot be accommodated
in public schools, the Government, through Funds for
Assistance to Private Education (FAPE), provides funds to
private high schools equivalent to what the Government
would spend for public high-school students.
DECS has also instituted easy and affordable education
programmes and alternative delivery systems to students
of high-school age not in school. The out-of-school
programme provides an accreditation and equivalency
programme parallel to those in actual high schools. The
out-of-school youth take validating exams and bridging
programmes that make them eligible for college.
The policy for out-of-school youths of high-school age
therefore differs from that for children of elementary
school age. The policy is less to keep these youths in
school or bring them back to formal education than to
provide parallel programmes as substitutes for a
high-school education.
.
Monitoring, Rescue, And Rehabilitation
The Bureau of Women and Young Workers (BWYW) of the
Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and their
labour inspectors coordinate with local governments, the
Philippine National Police (PNP), employers'
associations, and trade unions in identifying and
rescuing child labourers. The Bureau of Social Protection
of the Department of Social Welfare and Development
(DSWS) takes temporary custody of rescued children while
searching for their parents or alternative families. The
children are given educational assistance for non-formal
or vocational education and livelihood loan assistance.
The DSWS also has a special programme for street
children. It aims to reduce their numbers through
coordination with local government units, the PNP, civic
organisations, and the private sector. The strategy
mainly consists of a public information media campaign
emphasising the responsibilities of parents and pursuing
their punishment in cases of child abuse and neglect.
An Anti-Child Labour Magna Carta
There have been moves to draft a bill, sponsored by
Senator Loren Legarda, that details rules and regulations
and provides child labour laws with more teeth. This
legislation is to include:
• formal institutionalisation of the National
Committee on Child Labour (NCLC), a coalition of
government and non-governmental agencies and
organisations that coordinates closely with ILO-IPEC;
• detailing the terms and conditions of employment
of child labour and the protection of children's rights;
the bill will define more clearly hazardous activities
and specify permissible and non-permissible work
conditions and undertakings;
• amending current legislation allowing
apprenticeship of those aged 14-15 years, which is being
abused by some to exploit child labour;
• setting the minimum wage payment for child labour
and prohibiting full-time (eight hours a day) work for
children below 15 years of age (a maximum of four hours a
day might be imposed); the bill will specify a maximum of
eight hours a day work for youths aged 15-18, and copies
of birth certificates will be required for young workers
in formal establishments; and
• penalising parents and employers for infringements
of the child labour law; employers, subcontractors, and
the like will be clearly defined in law, making it clear
who should bear sanctions and penalties for
infringements.
ILO-IPEC Initiatives
The crisis erupted at a time when ILO-IPEC had
strengthened the organisational participation of
Government agencies, non-government organisations (NGOs),
trade unions, church groups, and the media. Many plans
and policies, including those mentioned above, were the
results of programmes and interactions among ILO-IPEC
members before the onset of the crisis. Given the current
crisis, that group is now aware of the even more urgent
need to implement existing plans and policies, as well as
to formulate new ones addressing the effects of the
crisis on child labour. Group activities gained
significant momentum in the months just before the crisis
and following. The current situation should thus present
a challenge to this group, where there already exists
needed organisational structure, institutional
cooperation, high morale, and enthusiasm.
Before the crisis, ILO-IPEC had formulated the following
key approaches to the child labour problem:
• Mainstream the issue of child labour and child
protection as important policy issues at the national,
regional, and provincial levels. This should be done via
national media and advocacy campaigns, formulation of
legislative agendas, strengthening coordination, social
alliances, and capability building directed towards child
labour programmes.
• Make intolerable forms of child labour the
priority target, identifying and reaching children most
at risk.
• Use existing statistics and surveys as well as
surveillance, outreach, and investigation, together with
a strong reliance on complaints from legitimate sources
to accumulate vital information on child labour.
Encourage the cooperation of NGOs, trade unions, church
bodies, the media, and civil society in general.
• Consolidate and integrate community approaches in
prevention, protection, withdrawal, and rehabilitation of
child labour. Community organisation and capability
building are critical in facilitating grassroots response
to the child labour problem.
• Work directly with parents and with working
children and their organisations.
• Broaden access to education in tackling the child
labour problem. This includes financial support for
schooling via educational scholarships through NGOs and
private foundations, and provision of non-formal or
alternative learning programmes for out-of-school
children and youths.
• Counter inadequacies in direct interventions and
rescues by encouraging NGOs and the private sector to
participate in the prevention, identification, and rescue
of child labour.
• Target and lobby for legislative and judicial
actions and policies to bring justice to children.
ILO-IPEC members, following their programme consultation
of 28 March 1998, proposed the following measures to cope
with the crisis:
• strengthen, broaden, and deepen scholarship
programmes, livelihood projects, and self-help schemes;
• encourage and reinforce inherent resilience
through values clarification and coping psychology;
• create and empower community-based pools of
implementers;
• document and replicate successful programmes;
• embark on preventive organising schemes to
anticipate harder times;
• mainstream child labour concerns and put child
labour on the map of public concern through advocacy;
• provide real help through economic activities that
directly result in a more stable economic base;
• organize and enhance partnerships and networks;
• more strictly enforce laws to strengthen existing
child labour programmes;
• undertake research on various areas of concern
related to the child labour issue;
• mobilise local resources;
• build the capability and capacity of caregivers
and institutions to provide care to the most affected;
• streamline communication with international donors
so that concrete help of the kind needed can be gotten
from them, given clear signals of worthiness; and
• reinforce donors to counter donor fatigue.
As outlined, of course, these tasks are rather sweeping
and various. Initial efforts must focus on key policies
and concrete measures.
More Accessibility To Secondary Education
To increase high-school participation in the short run,
while public high schools and public funds are
inadequate, considerable money is needed to supplement
FAPE efforts. Again, multilateral and bilateral sources
should provide the biggest hope for this during times of
fiscal distress. Beyond this, universal high school
education should eventually be compulsory. This goal
should be part of an alternative development strategy,
and would go a long way towards reducing the exploitation
and abuse of child labour, which, according to available
data, most effects children of high school age.
Finally, if high school education is eventually to be
universal and compulsory, it is essential to provide more
resources for school buildings, public school teachers,
and other support. More than simply finding new funds,
this may also require re-prioritisation of Government
budgets. In addition, the quality of elementary and
secondary education must be improved. Most Filipinos
consider public schools to be of dubious quality,
inferior to the more expensive private institutions. If
education is to be seen as a worthy investment, if we are
to encourage families to place a high value on their
children's education, it is imperative that the quality
of schools, curricula, and textbooks be improved. If
families are assured their children can acquire a higher
degree of literacy and other skills, allowing them to
drop out of school may come to be seen as prohibitively
costly.
Eileen Shewan is a former member of the PSNA
committee. She visited the Philippines in 1990. #
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