Child Labour - Philippines

March 1996
We offer you a shocking report on child labour in the Philippines.

Mari-Lou is having the best day of her life. She and two friends are screaming at the top of their voices as they descend down a water chute. A government social worker has treated the girls to a day at an amusement park to help them recover from the trauma of being locked up, beaten, unpaid and sexually abused. Recruited from their peasant village to became maids in Manila, they have been totally exploited by their employment agency. Impoverished families are forced to let their children suffer slave labour. At a gold mine, Joel makes $8 a day scrabbling in the mud for any gold ore which spills beneath the wheels of endless trucks. In Manila, 13 year old Brian Marsada is locked into a dim warehouse where he bottles bleach. When it is raided by government forces, Brian escapes. A journey home to the lush but poverty stricken island of Mindanao in the Philippines reunites him with his family. His bright western clothes contrast with his father's torn and dirty shirt. Now embarrassed by the shabby hamlet, he misses the cheap, coloured lights of Manila.

Produced by ABC Australia
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Child
• labour
• Philippines
• miners
• farmers
• manila
• news
• documentary
• current affairs
• journeyman
• journeyman pictures

[FiIipinoUnggoy]

@tinyfilipinachick29 Filipinos like to boast and say that they're the best in something, claiming that it is a benign national trait. But when someone criticizes them, even constructively, they get mad and play out their victim mentality. They think the whole world is jealous of them and pulling them down, when in fact they pull their country down with their own bad habits and poor decision-making. It's like the pockmarked guy blaming everyone else for his pimple.

[musicalidea]

It's INTENSELY frustrating that they don't translate any of the comments provided by those being interviewed!

[hotgluegunfun1]

@FiIipinoUnggoy Maybe if you like classing them all together as one

[dayspeace]

It is sad that this kind of things continues to happen and power play between poor and rich continue to exist. I hope the country would soon find a way to provide justice for all, and no only for the few

[MultiTrackyBoyz]

Watching this for school :D

[idolista1]

@richo12345678 visayan =)

[richo12345678]

are these people speaking a different dialect? or is my tagalog more worse than i thought?

[CLMinzyDaraBom]

yeah... I'm a filipino...

[Qcumber]

When I was 6, I and the other children of the village helped adults in the field work. That was in Europe after WWII. What was wrong with that?

[fawdown]

@FiIipinoUnggoy Everyone has a tendency to boast for no good reason. In the Asian world it is done to save face. Then when someone finds out, they generally get angry at themselves for looking weak. It has nothing to do with you other than you saw their weakness. At least it's not like in China, where if it happens they will retaliate and turn it around, aimed at you. From my own experience, that is a brutal thing to have to go through. It has the ability to ruin lives.

[gma904]

@FiIipinoUnggoy WRONG!