LEGAZPI CITY: In the near future, poor families in Masbate’s fishing
communities would no longer be living in scarcity while relying mainly on
fishing for their daily subsistence but would be heading towards a more
meaningful life through a highly profitable venture in seaweed farming.
A commercial seaweed production project designed by the Department of
Labor and Employment (DOLE) in partnership with the International Labor
Organization (ILO) is now being readied for implementation initially for
hundreds of marginal fishers in Naro Island of Cawayan, Masbate.
Naro is an island at the middle of Jintololo Channel and Visayan Sea
with four barangays -- Naro, Lo-oc, Punta and Talisay - with a total population
of around 2,000 households of indigent families, mostly dependent on fishing
for their livelihood.
The project would attempt to liberate these families from the bondage
of poverty by establishing an alternative livelihood aimed at drawing them away
from fishing where child labor is generally prevalent.
Based on the 2009 official poverty statistics, fishermen posted the
highest poverty incidence for nine basic sectors in the Philippines at 41.4%.
The 2011 Survey on Children done by the National Statistics Office
(NSO) on the other hand revealed that there were 4.2 million working children
all over the country, 2.4 million of which classified as child labor because of
their exposure to hazardous conditions like fishing.
The DOLE, as lead implementing agency of the Philippine Program Against
Child Labor (PPACL) has been taking serious effort in carrying out measures and
strategies in the campaign against child labor.
The ILO is an international organization with a national campaign in
the Philippines dubbed “Batang Malaya: A Child Labor-Free Philippines” being
undertaken by its National Child Labor Committee.
For its part, the DOLE has come up with a Child Labor-Free Barangay
Campaign, a nationwide program that intends to bring back millions of child
laborers and children at risks to schools from works like mining, gold panning,
fishing, among others that are considered hazardous.
All over the country, the NSO’s 2011 Survey on Children reported that
the over 2.4 million children of school ages from poor families in child labor
are forced to leave schools to help the family earn a living. About 10,000 of
these children laborers mostly engaged in small scale mining and fishing
activities are in the province of Masbate, according to a recent study of the
DOLE.
Nathaniel Lacambra, the DOLE regional director for Bicol based in this
city, on Tuesday said that under the seaweed production project for Naro
Island, local fisher folks will be trained on commercial growing of seaweeds
that promise sufficient family income so that children are drawn away from
labor and sent back to school. - PNA
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