The Anti-Child Labor, Exploitation and Trafficking Network was launched yesterday in Bacolod City as a coordinating and support service group for victims and families of child labor and various forms of abuses, particularly in Negros Occidental.

The ACTNET aims at coordinating advocacies against child labor in order to present these concerns before government agencies, Karl Ombion, its executive director, said at the launching of the network yesterday.

Ombion, also of the Center for Investigative Research and Multi-media Services, said their theme focuses on the "Batang Anakbalhas (child workers)," which, he disclosed, are numerous in sugarcane plantations and other agricultural farms. The group also said in a statement that as of 2005 census, working children in Negros Occidental account for 41 percent, or about 137,122, out of the 334,000 total child workers population in Negros island.

Oriental Negros is worse, with 59 percent, or some 197,283 child laborers, it added.

Most of these working children can also be found in the commercial and marginal fishing trade, fish processing plants, dumpsites, commercial ports, warehouses, informal businesses, pyrotechnics, public transport utilities such as trisikads and tricycles, eateries, entertainment clubs, sex dens, and domestic households, it revealed.

Moreover, the group said, in coordination with other agencies and individuals, it vows to address not only the immediate manifestations of the child labor and trafficking problems but also their socio-economic roots.

Resource speakers at the launching were Bacolod Councilors Jocelle Batapa-Sigue and Ana Marie Palermo, chairpersons of the Sanggunian committees on women and gender development, and social services, children and family, respectively; and Isabel Lanadas, national executive director of the Children's Rehabilitation Center.

Palermo said the local government is addressing the child labor problem by creating the Child Labor Education and Advocacy Task Force, which besides its efforts to combat child labor, is also advancing the rights of abused children.

Batapa-Sigue said the Anti-Trafficking Committee established by the council wants to come up with a data-base to identify child workers.

Also present yesterday were representatives of Kadamay, Karapatan, Gabriela, National Federation of Sugar Workers, Teatro Obrero, and the Social Action Center of the Diocese of Bacolod, among others.

Gov. Joseph Marañon yesterday said children who work in sugarcane fields is more because their parents ask them to help due to economic need.

As much as possible we should try to avoid that because these children have to go to school, he said.

The provincial government has a lot of programs to help students go to school but the problem still exists because of rising costs, such as fuel, he said.*GCT

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