World Day Against Child Labour, 2019

Looking Back, Moving Forward, and Taking Action Towards a Child Labour-Free Philippines

In the celebration of World Day Against Child Labour during its Centenary, the ILO looks back at the past century’s achievements of tackling child labour, its milestones addressing the issue in the Philippines, and propels action to end all forms of child labour in the country.

This Centenary year, the International Labour Organization Country Office for the Philippines (ILO CO-Manila), through the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) led by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), will revisit 100 years of history, highlight ongoing programmes, and define action towards a future without child labour on World Day Against Child Labour (WDACL).

2019 also marks the 25th anniversary of the Philippine Programme Against Child Labor which was established during the ILO’s National Planning Workshop on the Elimination of Child Labour in July 1994. The theme for this year is Children Shouldn’t Work in Fields but on Dreams, which is locally adopted as “Hayaan ang mga batang mangarap, nang huwag malugmok sa trabahong mahirap.”

The WDACL event will be held on 29 June 2019 at the GSIS Theatre in Manila, Philippines. Around 300 participants are expected to join the WDACL celebration, with members of the NCLC and social partners of the Philippine Program Against Child Labor (PPACL) consisting of government, employers’, and workers’ organizations, international development organizations, civil society, and the private sector, former and present child labourers, children-at-risk, students and the youth, parents, and other stakeholders.

The WDACL 2019 celebration serves as a venue to highlight important milestones in the Philippines in ending child labour through a multi-stakeholder forum and career orientation for students and out-of-school youth. By looking at various components such as monitoring and enforcement, social service delivery, research, and advocacy, the two-part activity aims to highlight good practices in addressing child labour in the Philippines, and strengthen its campaign against child labour by promoting decent work.

The WDACL 2019 activity is implemented under the ILO CARING Gold Mining Project (Convening Actors to Reduce Child Labour and Improve Working Conditions in Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining) and is funded by the US Department of Labor (US DOL). This is in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goal target 8.7 to eradicate child labour by 2025.

For further information please contact:

Ms Arleen Grace Taguba
Project Officer
CARING Gold Project
Tel.: +63 2 580 9900
Email: