Parents’ Awareness on the Rights Of Children Engaged in Child Labor

This study determined the parents’ awareness on the rights of children engaged in child labor in Quezon, Bukidnon. The parents’ level of awareness is measure from their scope of knowledge on children’s right such as right to education, right to be heard, right to rest and leisure, right to health and safety, right to standard living, right to working conditions and right to wages which are embodied on the voluntary code of conduct. The study showed, the majority of the respondents were females, most of the respondents only reached elementary level, and none of them finished a degree in college. Most of the respondents have children ranging from 5-8 and two of their children engaged in child labor whose work falls under the category of land preparation and cultivation. Farming was the most common source of living among the respondents. They earned an income of less than 7,500 pesos every month. The parents were highly aware of the rights of their children as stipulated in the International Labor Organization, the voluntary code of conduct, United Nation Convention on the right of children and the labor codes of the Philippines in which this study adopted. Furthermore, the findings confirmed that there was a significant difference in the parents’ awareness when grouped according to gender and educational attainment. However, there was no significant difference on the respondents’ level of awareness when grouped according to the number of children, occupation, monthly income, number of children employed in child labor and nature of work of children.

Keywords: Parents, awareness, International Labor Organization, Rights of children, Voluntary code of conduct, United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children.