School or work? | Astrid Zweynert

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Child labour is rife in the Philippines. Read more by clicking on the images.

Marnel has reason to smile - he is back at school after years of toiling as a child worker in factories, farm hand and domestic helper in the Philippines.

His mother left the family when he was 15 and his father could no longer support his seven children on his meagre wages as a day labourer in the Eastern Visayas, one of the Philippines' poorest regions. Marnel had to quit school to work and support his family.

An estimated 5.5 million children aged 5 to 17 in the Philippines work - nearly 20 percent of the country's young people.

Almost three million child workers in the Philippines toil in mining, agriculture and sex work, while the rest help out on family-owned farms or do house work.

This boy picks up sacks of rice and building materials from the ferry and takes them to people's houses.

The government has stepped up efforts to root out the worst forms of child labour, with access to education a key plank of its strategy.

But poverty still forces many parents in rural areas to send their children to work.

© 2018 by Astrid Zweynert