Child sakadas in Philippine agriculture: Researching injury hazards for working children in the context of international labor standards and United States foreign policy

Sakada is the Filipino/Tagalog word for a farmworker or migrant laborer that typically gets paid below the minimum wage. In the Philippines, there are approximately 2.5 million children working in agriculture. Children who work in agriculture encounter various occupational safety and health risks that may result in fatal or non-fatal injuries. Article 3(d) of the International Labor Organization's (ILO) Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor and Recommendation 190 calls on member states to undertake tripartite consultations to specify and create a list of "hazardous work" for children. Furthermore, trading partners with the United States are also required to demonstrate commitments to eliminating exploitive work to children. Through the ILO's Statistical Information and Monitoring Program on Child Labor (SIMPOC), around 50 countries have received technical assistance to carry out national child labor surveys. Many of these surveys collect data on important occupational exposures and risk factors for nonfatal injuries and illnesses that can assist identifying hazardous work. This study presents a systematic methodology to identify hazardous work and highlights key risk factors for non-fatal injures to children working in agriculture. Using data from the 2001 Philippine Survey on Children, an ILO-sponsored SIMPOC survey, with a nationally representative sample of 6,058 children, findings from this study demonstrate that children working in agriculture had a five times relative risk of injury compared to children working in other industries. Adjusted odds ratios from a logistic regression model indicated that the most robust risk factor for the occurrence of an agricultural injury to a child included the use of tools/equipment, increasing the odds of injury by three times. Agricultural sectors with elevated risks of injury included children working in hunting and logging, hog farming rice, corn, coconut, banana, and sugarcane sectors. Policy implications and program recommendations for preventing child labor in agriculture and injury prevention strategies are also discussed.