Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte on Sunday said one of the city’s prides, the 27-hectare Quezon Memorial Circle, is now a child labor-free zone in celebration of National Children’s Month.
Belmonte said it was fitting to grant the feat to QMC for serving as the venue of the Global March Against Child Labor on Jan. 17, 1998.
“This is the historic site where our local intention to end child labor ignited a worldwide conviction that is now being shared by the nations of the world,” she said.
During her recent State of the City’s Children Report at the QMC, she awarded the Seal of Child Labor-Free Zone to QMC after all its tenants, guards, gardeners, and admin staff underwent extensive training for Child Rights and Child Labor 101.
As part of the city government’s efforts to eradicate child labor, Belmonte said she has established the Quezon City Inter-Agency Task Force for the Special Protection of Street Children and Child Laborers or Task Force Sampaguita.
Created by virtue of Executive Order No. 41, Series of 2022, the task force has consolidated and intensified all efforts to eradicate all forms of child labor in Quezon City.
Since September, 685 individuals, including 296 child workers, have been rescued by Task Force Sampaguita.
The city government also conducted an extensive profiling to determine the child labor situation in Quezon City where it was discovered that 5,449 boys and 4,773 girls were victims of child labor.
Belmonte vowed to rescue mendicants, including street children and child laborers from hazardous situations, through a series of city-wide reach out operations.
