2025-11-27

20 more child laborers in BARMM rescued, rehabilitated.

COTABATO CITY— Twenty more rescued child laborers, who are set to return to their schools, received over the weekend an initial P15,000 in cash assistance and school supplies each as part of the Bangsamoro government’s extensive anti-child labor program. Regional officials told reporters on Monday, November 24, that 10 of the 20 former child laborers are from indigenous Teduray families in Romangaob and Kuya in South Upi, Maguindanao del Sur, while the rest are from Barangay Poblacion 9 in Cotabato City, the capital of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Bangsamoro Labor and Employment Minister Muslimin Sema and the director of the Bureau of Employment Promotion and Welfare Division, Bai Sara Jane Sinsuat, separately told reporters that the Ministry of Labor and Employment–BARMM will assist in returning the 20 former child laborers to their schools through its Bangsamoro Child Labor Sagip Program (BCLSP). The 10 rescued child laborers in South Upi worked in rice and corn farms, while some sold cooked food and other merchandise in the markets and at their municipal public terminal. The group of 10 children from Barangay Poblacion 9 in Cotabato City that received cash subsidies and other provisions from MoLE-BARMM gathered sellable recyclable wastes at the city government’s garbage dumpsite in the area to earn money to help their parents sustain the needs of their poor families. The MoLE-BARMM’s BCLSP is also partly focused on addressing the wanton use of children as combatants in areas where clan wars, triggered by affronts to clan pride and honor, land disputes and politics, are prevalent. Each of the 20 former child laborers received their cash grants and school supplies during a simple rite at the regional office of MoLE-BARMM in the Bangsamoro Capitol in uptown Cotabato City last weekend. “We are thankful to all of those helping us implement our Bangsamoro Child Labor Sagip Program,” Sinsuat said. Sema said they are also grateful to the International Labor Organization of the United Nations, the local government units in BARMM, the office of Cotabato City Mayor Bruce Matabalao and two non-government organizations, the Asian Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Areas and the Community Organizers Multiversity, for helping them push the BCLSP forward. Sema said that the Bangsamoro health, social services and education ministries are also supporting the BCLSP. The MoLE-BARMM and its partners have rescued 691 child laborers since 2023, almost all of them re-enrolled in schools, according to the latest records in its regional office and in different divisions of line agencies in the autonomous regional government and in the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region. The parents of the 691 rescued child laborers and combatants are now engaged in backyard agricultural projects, such as propagation of mushrooms and other crops, livestock-raising and production of preserved native delicacies that they sell in the markets via joint interventions by the Bangsamoro government, the ILO, the LGUs and the NGOs involved in the BCLSP.