Byline: Bernardo M. Villegas

Out of the 100 children who start grade school, only about 40 will be able to continue after six years of elementary schooling. The remaining sixty will drop out mainly for financial reasons. It is not only because these twelve-or thirteen-year olds cannot

afford to pay the non-motion costs of education (transport, textbooks and other materials, allowance). They also are badly needed by the family to help out in household and farm chores. Deprived of infrastructure and financial support, the typical farmer needs all the farmhands he can mobilize to eke out a meager living.

The phenomenon of child labor is most acute in the farming sector. This is the other side of the so-called population problem. The farmer and his wife must have four to six children because the manpower (or more accurately child power) provided by children is a most important economic resource for survival. Unless and until the countryside is endowed with sufficient infrastructures (farm-to-market roads, irrigation systems, post-harvest facilities, etc.) family sizes in the rural areas will tend to be large.

As an increasing percentage of the population shifts to urban areas and non-agricultural work, there is a greater possibility of limiting "child labor." In a recent meeting of the International Labor Organization (ILO), it was revealed that the number of child workers fell by 11% at the global level over the past four years. The greatest progress in eliminating child labor was achieved in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In a report that appeared in the Zenit International News Agency, three categories of child labor that is proscribed under the international law were enumerated.

The worst forms, defined as slavery, trafficking, debt bondage and other forms of forced labor. This includes forced recruitment of children for use in armed conflict, prostitution and pornography, and other illicit activities.

Labor performed by a child who is under the minimum age specified for that kind of work, and that is thus likely to impede the child's education and full development.

Labor that jeopardizes the physical, mental or moral well-being of a child, either because of its nature or because of the conditions in which it is carried out. This is known as "hazardous work."

What can we learn from the Catholic social doctrine about child labor. The Catholic Church has long opposed abuses committed through child labor. In fact, the first social encyclical, "Rerum Novarum," issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, condemned the practice. In a quote cited by the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (No. 296), Leo XII stated that children should not be put to work before their minds and bodies are sufficiently developed.

Over a century later, in the World Day of Peace Message for 1996, Pope John Paul II wrote: "Child labor, in its intolerable forms, constitutes a kind of violence that is less obvious than others, but it is not for this reason any less terrible."

The Compendium notes that in some situations the economic contribution made by children at work can be indispensable for families and countries. Nevertheless, the Church condemns the exploitation of children in situations that are a form of veritable slavery.

In the same way that there are pro-life and pro-family NGOs actively working in the Philippines, there should be equivalent initiatives of civil society to reduce child labor, if not totally eliminate it. For comments, my email is _ HYPERLINK "mailto:bvillegas@uap.edu.ph" bvillegas@uap.edu.ph_.