CHILD STRUGGLE

Everyone has requires to work in order to earn money and to survive in everyday need. Working also requires the right age and this responsibility is for the father as the head of the family family.  They are the one responsible in providing the basic needs of his family like food, clothes, shelter and the most important one, education for his children.  But what if your parents are don’t have a job and not responsible enough to provide us this support?  Are you going to take the risk in finding job at the very young age?

Children with unemployed parents do not have social security but must work to help in their families' struggle to survive. The satisfaction of these children's basic needs in life takes priority over their other needs such as education and recreation.

Filipino families particularly value helpfulness and responsibility-sharing. Philippine culture especially in rural areas consider child work as a phase of socialization where future roles are learned and working to share in the family is seen as training.  This is the reason why some of the parents taking it as an advantage, they are forcing their children to work at the early age.  Many parents prefer to send their children out to work rather than to school, either because they cannot afford to pay the tuition fees, books, uniforms, transportations and other expenses or because they can not see what will be the help of schooling in the future.

Child Labor is rooted in poverty and the lack of economic opportunities. It is often a response by the household to the need to satisfy basic requirements.  It is the illegal employment of children below the age of seventeen where they are not directly under the sole responsibility of their parents or legal guardians.

One of the best examples of child labor in the Philippines was very noticeable.  Children living on the streets engage in informal labor activities such as scavenging or begging.  We notice it everywhere; some of them are selling sampaguitas in the middle of the street while some of them begging for money, I also see women using her new born baby just to beg the attention of people around them.  Aside from this some of children are also engaged in domestic service and are involved in the commercial sex industry, including the use of children in the production of pornography and the exploitation of children by sex tourists.

           

Aside from poverty, another major factor that I noticed in the increase of the number of working children is the demand for child workers. Employers know all too well the advantages of employing children. They represent a docile work force, which could be hired and replaced at a fraction of adult wages. They do not join labor unions and very seldom complain.

           

Above all, employers who hire children gain a competitive advantage in both national and international markets due to the low wages they pay children.

           

I am against to the family of those children who are helping their family by working at the early age because I know how hard to deprived the experience of being a kid.  I was forced to look for a job when I was seventeen just to struggle to pay my balance in my previous school and to continue my college.  I do this to help my siblings to their needs that my parents can’t provide.

And until now, I was working after school just to support my needs as a student and sustain the needs of my siblings. I need to attend my class in the morning and instead of doing my projects and assignments after school I need to work.

At this age I need to help my parents in providing the fee for electric and water bill which the typical college student doesn’t entail to do.  In some way I think there are still positive values that I have learned in working at this age, it made me feel that I am more responsible.  It also taught me to be strong in facing problems especially when it comes to money and other material things.  I am wishing that these values also apply to those children out there who are suffering in working at the early age.  Like in my own experience even though I am working too hard for my family I didn’t taught of stopping or dropping my opportunity to go to school.  I strive hard to earn money and to fulfill my dreams, to hold a degree that everyone can be proud of.  I just want my parents to realize that I can be on my own without their financial support and help.