I have believed and still believe that the nation’s GDP is understated not only because of the unaccounted underground economy but also because of the child labor factor that is unreported by the businesses which could be due to the ff:
1. there are the child labor laws that restrict employment of children below 15.
2. businesses are owned by the families
3. the money goes to the pocket of the children’s parents as advances or payments of loans.
According to Unicef, India has the largest number of child laborers under the age of 14.
My mother-in-law did not like to use the hand-woven rug which came from this country. She said that for every fiber that she walked on the carpet, she felt that she was stepping on the small fingers of these overworked, hungry and sleepy children who were quartered in some sweat shops to work beyond the normal working hours of the adult.
The organization said that although poverty is cited as the reason for child labor, they also consider other factors such as discrimination, social exclusion, attitudes and lack of education of parents to contribute to child labor.
Another cause is child trafficking. Due to cheap labor, businesses prefer child laborers who are supplied by syndicates which may kidnap children from the rural areas or promise the parents of good money to allow them to work in the urban areas. (sounds like some local helper recruiters in the Philippine barrios).
I am going to address three concerns about our children; child labor, forced labor and children’s arrest and detention.
1. Child labor
In the Philippines, the National Survey on Children (NSC) indicated that there were about 4 million economically active children aged 5 to 17 years in 2001, which
constitutes 16.2 percent of the total population of children in the same age group. Out of the 4 million child workers, about 60 percent or 2.4 million were exposed to hazardous working environments
In the Philippines, the minimum age for general employment is 15 years. Under the Child Protection Act of 1992 and the Republic Act No. 7610, however, children under 15 may be employed, provided that: the employer secures a work permit from the Department of Labor and Employment; the protection, health, and safety and morals of the children can be ensured; measures to prevent exploitation or discrimination in remuneration and work schedules are instituted; and a continuous program for training and skill acquisitions of the child is formulated and implemented.30 The Republic Act No. 7658 amended section Article VIII, section 12, of Act No. 7610 by prohibiting children below 15 years of age from employment except when they work in a family-run company or when their participation in public entertainment is “essential”.31 Moreover, under the Child and Youth Welfare Code, employers are required to submit periodic reports and maintain a register on child employees.
One of the most common jobs for a child labor is carried out in fishing. Fishing companies use young enslaved boys to dive to dangerous depths to drive big fish to the waiting net. The illegal fishing practice is muro ami.
Another similar destructive process is paaling. The young divers use hoses to force fishes into the nets. Young divers often drown and the coral reefs become devastated.One young boy who escaped the fishing company said that they only get paid after their ten month-contract. Their food was deducted from their pay. They were whipped like slaves.
A few years ago, I saw a TFC feature in about these young elementary pupils and out-of-school youths who worked in mussel farms somewhere in Cavite .
To maintain and harvest the mussels, they did also a lot of diving for a measly sum of money.
Then there the visibles and invisibles. The invisibles are those working for syndicates as drug couriers, pickpockets and the Akyat-bahay Gang small assistants used to get into the small windows of houses. The visibles are the street-children-panhadlers.
Forced Labor
Children are also used as “collateral” for the loans of the parents.
Children of farmers become househelpers to the landlords because they have to pay for the debts of their parents which increased day-in day out due to the usurious interests charged on the principal.
Only a few days ago, one feature in TV showed a boy asking for help so he could leave his employer who maltreats him. He could not leave not unless he pays his parents’ advance which amounted to several thousands of pesos.
Just like in Africa, our children are also being treated as commodities.
3. Children’s arrests and detention
While the Church leaders asked people to pray for the unborn, they seem to be forget those who were already born and alive. Children in the US are tried as juvenile and are not detained with adult criminals. Children in the Philippines can be arrested and detained like adults from the age of nine years old.
The Council for the Welfare of Children reported that from 1995 to 2000, 52,756 children have been in conflict with the law. Many of these cases involved the detention of minors, often in the same cells as adult offenders. Since 2003, over 26,000 children have been provided legal assistance by the Public Attorney’s Office.
More than half of the crimes for which minors are charged are not serious offenses. These include petty theft, sniffing of glue or solvents, vagrancy and violation of curfew hours. Many cases involving children are not reviewed immediately. Most are eventually dismissed by the courts due to out of court settlements or the failure of witnesses to appear during the trial. Many children experience detention in sub-standard conditions for long periods of time before their cases are finally resolved.
According to Unicef, there are signs that more children in Thailand who are not in desperate poverty are “choosing” to become involved in commercial sexual exploitation in response to growing materialism. In some border areas, children are still at risk of being killed by landmines or being recruited as soldiers
Child Slavery Imported in America
Shyima Hall, 19, discusses her domestic enslavement on Sept. 16, 2008, in Beaumont, Calif. Shyima was 10 when a wealthy Egyptian couple brought her from a poor village in Northern Egypt to work in their California home. She earned $45 a month working up to 20 hours a day.
Shyima was forced by her parents to work with the couple because of their poverty. They were happy when Shyima was brought to the US by the family. She thought that living in the basement without light and serving her abusive employer was also normal in the US until some neighbors took pity on this little girl and reported her plight to the authorities.
During trial of the Egyptian couple, the parents of the minor were still convincing their daughter not to turn witness against her employers.
The Egyptian couple were convicted, imprisoned and were made to pay the back wages of the young girl.
After they were free from prison, the neighbors spotted again another nine-year old girl in their house.
Contributing Writer: The Ca t of Now What, Ca t?
Popularity: 1% [?]
a minor correction.
Child labor doesn’t contribute to the mismeasurement of GDP. GDP is the value added of production in a country and sold in a maket with prices. To the extent that this output produced is produced by children, then its counted.
This reason the underground economy may not counted is that transactions need not involve prices. Also, the underground economy is underground because participants avoid taxes…
And I believe the GNP (the economy as a whole including economic value added by overseas commercial activity) is overstated. The 10% of the “value” of our economy accounted for by overseas remittances, does not take into account the costs to society of the absentee-parentism that is part and parcel of the nature of the OFW business.
The revenue is immediate but the costs are accrued over generations; i.e. the costs in terms of psychological effects, half-baked upbringing, and substandard character of the absentee-parented offspring of OFWs, admittedly known unknowns, will be felt in unexpected ways over the next 50 years.
Gabby,
Underground economy is not accounted for because it is not reported not because it does not involve prices.
Like for example, the production of walis tinting or the cloth rugs being peddled by the ambulant vendors…the income from backyard poultry and hog raising and many others.
Child labor is a value added input in lieu of adult labor. As I have said, it may not be reported because the business is afraid to comply with requirements of the child labor laws; among which is the safety of the children.
Children normally do not choose to work. Most of that decision is taken for them by their parents.
Household economic: Parents act as a kind of benevolent dictator. Parents decision whether to send a child to work or to school depends essentially on 3 things:
the Opportunity-cost of education, the expected return to education, and household incomes to which parents are able to finance higher education.
The 1987 Constitution states that every child can avail free elementary and high school education. This alone cannot eliminate child labor. To eliminate it altogether, there should be a socialist policy such as government subsidies generous enough to cover the child’s current consumption.
National Economic : Children who are working rather than schooling will fail to accumulate human capital. This has an implication at the personal level as well as the national economy, since education contributes to labor productivity. An increase in human capital formation through the reduction of child labor in the long run will lead to increase economic growth and household incomes.
Globalization and Trade Policy: Child labor in our country is also related to international aid, trade liberalization, share of export of primary products and the competitiveness of the labor market.
AS GDP rises, inequality of income should fall, and the government’s ability to finance educational policies should rise. Not true yet for Philippines..
The cat believes that GDP is understated and Benigno believes, it’s overstated. WOW !!! so it’s a balance economy then. I should not care :)
What I am looking forward is a law that would punish the parents for neglecting their children or using them as work-horse.
In the States, Child endangerment is a criminal offense.
There is a lot of explaining from parents if the children are not attending schools.
What I think is that since most of our solons are landowners if not businessmen , they have children laborers in their farm and their households.
You are talking about spending or real income versus psychic costs.
The psychic income in the overseas deployment is the improvement in the standard of living while the psychic cost is the emotional imbalance/stress that are pointed out by some social scientists. My previous article showed that although there is an impact on the children emotion-wise, it did not turn them to the dregs of the society like the spoiled brat drug pushing-drug-dealing-and drug-dependent children of the upper income families.
punishment like jail time or monetary fines? may not
be convenient since we don’t have enough jails plus government cost and the family may have no money to pay. Government subsidies in the form of monetary to cover the child’s consumption with free schooling is probably more enticing because it is in a form of award instead of penalty. Punishment of parents thru legislation will work in the US because majority are in the middle income range. In the Philippines, our policymakers have not been able to increase salary and employment. Income inequality and unemployment has also been a problem. Poverty has a direct effect on child labor. Our government is as guilty as the parents. It becomes a social cost and a liability for the whole country.
oh great, blockquoting is working. :)
maybe congress should revisit Child Protection Act of 1992 and the Republic Act No. 7610. These laws have been implemented poorly. It has been broken by many employers. The government must create and provide a strong commission to INSPECT every employer. I don’t like children going to work. They should not even work.
In Philippines, Child labor in exports industry are common in garments,embroidery, rattan and furniture and gold mining. There should be a strong adherence and stable policies between trading countries on child labor. Importing countries are as guilty as the exporting countries. The stronger the rule of law of the importing countries is as important as our rule of law. A penalty for employers may alleviate some of this problems thru international trade agreement.
Great blog the cat..
@The Ca t on January 6th, 2009 3:02 pm
exactly. its not necessarily true that kids output is not counted. to the extent that kids output is sold in markets, then it IS counted. i suspect that most output produced by kids are in fact sold in markets.
none of this goes to whether kids ought to be working in the first place, so its a minor correction :)
Leytenian,
I agree. The problem is that the manufacturers hide these facts. It takes authorities to rescue the cildren from child labor-slavery only to return after they are released to their parents.
I hang kaya ng patiwarik? :)
o sige, let’s hang them na lang. that would be more appropriate :)
The trouble with the reporting system is that there are no invoices, there are no financial statements and there are no reports to the regulatory agencies on sales, licensing , output/productions and inventories like in the underground economy.
Drug dealing is also an underground economy. When reported, it would sure jack up the GDP of the nation; what with the daily consumption of the users; 4,000 a pop and the users don’t take it only once a day. So to finance, their vice, they have to be pushers too. tssk tssk.