Philippines: Combating Child Labor and Improving the Lives of Tobacco Farmers

Source from:  Business Mirror 05/06/2013

WHILE it has been the norm in most regions in the country to involve children in farm work, many farmers in the Ilocos region welcome new farm technologies and practices to help prevent child labor and eventually improve their production.

Farmers involved in tobacco production in particular admit that child labor has been deeply ingrained in their culture. From their earliest memories, they, their parents and their grandparents worked in the fields without being aware of the fact that law frowns upon this practice.

That is why tobacco farmer Dominador Orallo, 49, of Butubot, San Juan, La Union, frowns on this age-old practice of making children work in the field.

"We do not obligate our children to work in the field," he said. "But it has been part of our culture for children to work in the farm. Their work is mostly light. They help, especially when school is out."

In his youth, Orallo helped in his parents' farm because it was their only means of livelihood.

Orallo's three children also helped the family tend the farm, their contribution mostly light tasks like placing tobacco leaves on skewers and preparing them for curing.

They have all graduated from college. Orallo said his family now only tends around 2 hectares from the previous 4 hectares of tobacco plantation it owned, bringing them enough income for their daily sustenance as a contract grower for Philip Morris-Fortune Tobacco Corp. (PMFTC).

Three non-governmental organizations, for this purpose, extend their advocacies and assistance particularly on child-labor prevention, reforestation, and improving the lives of tobacco farmers in some towns in the Cordillera, the Ilocos region and Occidental Mindoro.

The Jaime V. Ongpin Foundation Inc. (JVOFI), Cordillera Green Network (CGN), and the Child and Family Service Philippines Inc. (CFSPI) are in the forefront as partners of PMFTC in its corporate social responsibility  programs to the towns that supply the bulk of tobacco the company manufactures into various cigarette brands.

As the tobacco industry currently deals with the impact of the Sin Tax Reform Law, PMFTC and its partners continue to address the concerns of farmers so that they become productive and efficient promoters of best agricultural practices, law-abiding citizens and active in achieving sustainable communities.

With JVOFI and CFSPI, the PMFTC is implementing the "Child labor prevention and improving the lives of tobacco farmers in the Ilocos region and Occidental Mindoro" as an intervention to reduce, if not totally eliminate, child labor. The project came about as child labor is one of the most rampant problems in tobacco farms as the norm in these communities has been for children to get involved in tobacco production.

A 2002 study by Partners International Inc. revealed the participation of children in tobacco production is a common feature in the life of some tobacco areas in the country.

The project involves discouraging the practice of child labor. CFSPI will do trainings to strengthen the barangay council for the protection of children, conduct family life enrichment service, life skills for children and youth development, child-minding service and advocacy campaign.

These trainings are followed by regular meetings with the councils to ensure that the plans they develop are carried out, according to the CFSP Program Director Millicent Julloya.

"While it is the norm in tobacco towns to get children involved in farming, it doesn't have to be. There are alternative ways they can help the family by working in the home. It's really educating families," Julloya said.

As a matter of policy, PMFTC does not condone the unlawful employment of children, the reason it requires all of its contract growers to comply with the company's corporate policy.

The project also aims to improve the living conditions of the contracted farmers where JVOFI, led by Executive Director Maria Rosario Lopez, will provide educational support, supplemental feeding, backyard food program and other assistance that would help parents understand the hazards of involving their children in tobacco production.

CGN has been tapped to provide technical expertise in reforestation and help maintain and sustain the forest threshold in tobacco-producing towns.

Junifer Allan of CGN said keeping the tree population in these areas is important as fuel wood is used by tobacco farmers in the curing stage of tobacco.

He said CGN also assists in identifying forest areas that must be planted or needing reforestation, what suitable trees need to be planted, and teaching farmers and schools proper-seedling propagation.

"This is actually double-purpose. Farmers will learn how to keep their areas forested, know the rules they have to follow to comply with directives [from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources], and then be an additional source of income," Allan said.

CGN has been established to promote a wholesome environment in the Cordillera. It organizes a pool of individuals and coordinates groups to help transform communities into models of sustainable natural-resources management. Enditem