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Use of child workers up

Former child domestic workers stand next to a poster as they joined a Manila conference on child labor yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

An increasing number of children are being employed as domestic servants in dire conditions across Asia amid rapid modernization and poverty, a study presented at a forum on child labor in the Philippines showed yesterday.

While it remains difficult to accurately assess the number of children working as "modern day slaves," studies showed that there are a high number of youngsters working in major cities and urban centers across the region.

Pre-Asian crisis figures said there were approximately 1.2 million child domestic workers in Bangladesh, one million in the Philippines, 1.5 million in Indonesia, 100,000 in Sri Lanka and 62,000 in Nepal.

Many of those were young females who are often sexually and physically abused, a study presented at the Manila forum on child domestic workers in Asia said.

"Asia is home to more than 60 percent of working children worldwide," the study said. "Child labor has increased. Abuses are more rampant and more hidden nowadays."

"The more scattered child laborers are increasingly more difficult to protect. And finally, they tend to sacrifice their education in the face of constricting incomes and opportunities."

It blamed poverty as top cause of child domestic work, with globalization exacerbating the problem. As the Asian middle class grew in recent years the demand for "younger, more subservient household servants" also increased with once traditional housewives now seeking work outside their homes to help boost family incomes.

Less work in rural areas in the countryside due to the influx of cheap agriculture imports, and the sharp decline in prices of exported commodities, have also pressured "the younger members of families to search for work away from home to pitch in their cash remittances."

The survey said most parents had little choice but to let their children take on domestic work because it may guarantee regular employment, the study said.
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