US Labor Dep’t says Sayyaf, NPA recruiting minors

WASHINGTON — Children under the age of 18 are recruited into terrorist organizations in the Philippines, including the Abu Sayyaf group and the communist New People’s Army (NPA), the US Department of Labor said in a report on child labor throughout the world.

It gave no details but Filipino government sources quoted at international labor meetings have indicated that more than 10 percent of the armed fighters of the NPA are minors or children under 18.

The report entitled "The Department of Labor’s 2005 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor" said there were no reports of child soldiers in the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

It said about 11 percent of children ages five to 14 years worked in the Philippines in various jobs in the agricultural sector (65.3 percent), the service industries (29.4 percent), manufacturing (4.2 percent) and other sectors (1.1 percent).

Children are also involved in the commercial sex industry, used in the production of pornography and exploited by sex tourists, the report said.

The report highlights progress made in the past year to combat the worst forms of child labor in 137 countries and territories throughout the world that receive US trade benefits but does not rank them in accordance with their track record on safeguarding the welfare of children.

The report released last week said child labor was one of many problems associated with poverty and in 2000, the latest year for which it had statistics, 15.5 percent of the population in the Philippines were living on less than $1 a day.

It said although there were adequate laws to protect children, enforcement was weak due to a lack of resources, an inadequate judicial infrastructure and low conviction rates.

The report on child labor is mandated under the US Trade and Development Act of 2000, which requires trade-beneficiary countries and territories to implement their international commitments to eliminate the worst forms of child labor.

As defined by the International Labor Organization, the worst forms of child labor include any form of slavery, such as forced or indentured child labor; the trafficking of children and their forced recruitment for use in armed conflict; child prostitution and pornography; and the use of children for illicit activities such as trafficking of drugs.

"We hope that this report will encourage trading partners of the United States to increase their efforts to address exploitative child labor and promote educational opportunities for all children," said James Carter, Labor Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs.

The Abu Sayyaf and the NPA are on a US blacklist of terrorist organizations.

The Abu Sayyaf group is notorious for ransom kidnappings, beheadings and bombings, including a February 2004 attack that gutted a ferry in Manila Bay and killed 116 people in one of Southeast Asia’s worst terrorist attacks.

Early last month, Philippine troops in Sulu launched an offensive to flush Abu Sayyaf top leader Khaddafy Janjalani and his two Jemaah Islamiyah allies out of the jungle.

Among the Jemaah Islamiyah members believed to be hiding there are Dulmatin, who goes by one name, and Umar Patek, both wanted for their alleged role in the 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

On the other hand, the Communist Party of the Philippines, through its armed wing, the NPA, has been fighting one of the world’s most tenacious Maoist insurgencies for the past 37 years.

Last month, Mrs. Arroyo ordered the military to crush the insurgency in three regions in Luzon within two years and has vowed to provide the resources to do the job.