ZAMBOANGA CITY—The Department of Labor and Employment continues its efforts to prevent and eliminate child labor across the country thru massive profiling and provision of assistance and appropriate interventions to the child laborers and their parents.

In 2018, DOLE tapped the Government Internship Program (GIP) beneficiaries as enumerators to identify the children who will be withdrawn from child labor. This year, the DOLE will continue to engage the services of Community Facilitators, encoders and enumerators to conduct profiling of child laborers throughout the region.

Regional Director Ofelia B. Domingo shared that DOLE, being the focal agency for prevention and elimination of child labor in the Philippines, initiated profiling activities so as to provide the necessary interventions and services to the profiled workers and their parents.

Based on the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022, there is a target to remove 630,000 children from child labor of which for 2019, 146,850 children are to be profiled by DOLE. In Region 9 alone, 7,290 children are to be profiled and assisted.

Thus, DOLE 9 conducted an Orientation & Action Planning Workshop on Child Labor Program on July 8-9, 2019 at Grand Astoria Hotel, Zamboanga City to 17 newly-hired project-based Community Facilitators (CF) who will cascade information to GIP enumerators and data encoders.

The Child Labor Prevention & Elimination Program intends to identify and validate presence of child labor incidence in the identified areas ensure that all profiled child laborers will be provided with the necessary intervention and services to remove them from child labor.

The program also aims to provide opportunity to community facilitators, encoders and enumerators to demonstrate and develop their talent and skills in the field of public service that can be applied in future jobs.

The 2-day orientation, personally facilitated by Director Domingo, included several workshops on knowledge, skills and attitude necessary for the job, discussions on administrative concerns, strategic planning and evaluation. END