Number of children working as domestics increasing in Asia

Number of children working as domestics increasing in Asia

Agence France-Presse, Manila

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 on Sunday.

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 abused, both
sexually and physically, 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 the number one cause of child domestic work,
with globalization exacerbating the phenomenon.

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.

But while some find homes where they are treated well as
extensions of the family, most are forced into working 24 hours a
day without holidays and are underpaid.

"Though a roof over the head is surely free, many child
domestic workers reveal they were forced to eat leftovers, or
compete for dog food, to drink liquid detergent mixed in juice or
just swallow the emotional strain that goes with the work," the
study said. "Help from outside is difficult because they cannot
go beyond closed doors. They are on their own."

Philippine Social Work Secretary Corazon Soliman, in her
keynote address to the forum, urged Asian governments to
eliminate child labor by passing legislation that would outlaw
the practice and by ratifying conventions of the International
Labor Organization.

She said it was an "anomaly" for parents to say they love
their children and yet allow them to work elsewhere and suffer
both emotional and physical abuses in exchange for money.

In the Philippines, she said, a proposed law that would outlaw
child domestic work is being debated and pushed and other
countries would do well to follow suit.