More agencies join Bangsamoro anti-child labor bloc

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The foreign-assisted anti-child labor campaign in six southern provinces got a boost this week with pledges of cooperation from more local executives, law enforcement and state security entities.

In the forefront of the efforts to address the decades-old practice of employing children as workers and armed combatants in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao are the regional labor and employment, local government and social welfare ministries, the Development Academy of the Bangsamoro and the Police Regional Police Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.

Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño Mendoza told reporters Saturday she has directed her constituent-mayors and their provincial social welfare office to support the inter-agency, multi-sector anti-child labor programs in all of the 63 Bangsamoro barangays in different towns in her province.

The 63 predominantly Moro barangays in different towns in Cotabato province in Region 12 that became part of the core territory of BARMM via a plebiscite in 2019 and now grouped together as the Special Geographic Area, or SGA, have government-recognized enclaves of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Moro National Liberation Front.

“We are ready to help address child labor and use of children as combatants in these 63 barangays even if no longer under us,” Mendoza told reporters via Viber, after learning that more military units and law enforcement outfits have pledged support for the program.

Representatives from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-BARMM and units in the region of the Philippine Coast Guard and the Navy’s 1st Marine Brigade assured of the support of their superiors to regional child labor programs during a series of workshops