Leveraging data to combat child labor: How ChildFund is using KoboToolbox in the Philippines

Despite landmark advances in protecting children’s rights, child labor and exploitative work practices remain pressing global issues, with devastating effects for children, families, and their communities. In the Philippines, approximately 2.1 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 living in marginalized communities are forced to work. The agricultural region of Mindanao has one of the highest concentrations of child laborers in the country. These children endure harsh working conditions, such as extreme heat, exposure to hazardous chemicals, and ten-hour workdays, without adequate protection or rest time. They are also often subjected to emotional and physical abuse, placing their health and wellbeing at even greater risk. Local efforts to address child labor are often hindered by systemic issues that enable abusive work practices. However, access to real-time data and digital tools like KoboToolbox present an opportunity to build local capacities and generate crucial insights to help prevent child exploitation.

Using KoboToolbox, ChildFund International is leading initiatives to combat child labor and build local capacities to address child exploitation in Mindanao, Philippines. Through the Building Capacity, Awareness, Advocacy and Programs (BuildCA2P) Project, funded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs, ChildFund Philippines equipped two locally-led organizations to track child labor, provide coordinated assistance, and promote improved working conditions in the region’s agricultural sector. Data collected with KoboToolbox helps to target interventions and resource allocation based on identified needs, enabling them to more effectively address child labor, safeguard children, and improve protection systems.

“The Project leverages advanced data collection and management tools to enhance organizational efficiency, improve monitoring and evaluation processes, and support vulnerable populations, particularly children involved in labor, across multiple regions in the Philippines.” - Alvin Dumduma, Project Coordinator for ChildFund

Since its inception in 2018, ChildFund Philippines’ BuildCA2P Project has worked to enhance the capacity of local civil society organizations (CSOs) to plan and implement programming to combat child labor and protect marginalized children. This initiative also focused on improving working conditions, including minimum wage standards, work hours, and occupational health and safety. Leveraging partnerships with academic and advocacy organizations, ChildFund works closely with families and connects survivors with essential services, while recognizing their role in driving solutions to address the root causes of the issue. The project also supports CSOs to achieve long-term impact with interventions to help child laborers access education, improve food security for families using farming technologies, and provide sustainable livelihood opportunities.

In collaboration with local partners the Kaanib Foundation and Halad Uma Alang sa Nasud Association (HaUman), the BuildCA2P team used KoboToolbox to digitize data collection for three different types of assessments to gather crucial information for child protection. To assess child labor rates, community volunteers collected comprehensive data about children who are in or at risk of child labor. The resulting database captures key information such as children’s work status, educational background, ethnicity, and relevant demographics, enabling volunteers to effectively monitor cases and manage data. Additionally, the BuildCA2P team used KoboToolbox for their confidential reporting and referral system to document incidents of child exploitation, including the nature of the abuse and demographic information. To assess project effectiveness, BuildCA2P also collected data on the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and practices of beneficiaries, including parents. These insights not only provided quantifiable information about services that were needed and the assistance that was delivered but also helped to measure the project’s overall impact.

Initially, the BuildCA2P Project relied on paper-based methods to collect and manually enter data to create the child labor database. To better understand the nature and scale of child exploitation in the country, 170 volunteers collected critical data from families across the provinces of Bukidnon, Davao del Norte, and North Cotabato every six months. The volunteers then manually entered all the data into the database. However, this manual data collection and entry process proved time consuming, impeding access to real-time information on child labor issues.

To address these challenges, the BuildCA2P team adopted KoboToolbox to digitize and further develop the database as well as the reporting and referral system and project assessment. In order to conduct data collection in the field, they installed and configured KoboCollect on 48 mobile devices used by community volunteers. For many volunteers, including parents, village councilors, health workers, and CSO staff, this was their first experience with mobile data collection. Leveraging the KoboCollect app enabled the project team to access real-time data, facilitating the implementation of the new child labor reporting system, increasing response capacities, and improving protection for vulnerable populations. With these enhanced tools for data collection and monitoring, cases of child labor can be more quickly reported and addressed by civil society and local government units, providing affected families with timely help.

“Kaanib and HaUman have utilized KoboCollect for monitoring cases of child labor … This involves tracking and documenting instances where children are engaged in labor, which is vital for creating targeted interventions and support systems for affected children and their families. The detailed and systematic data collected through KoboCollect enables a more informed approach to addressing and mitigating child labor issues.” - Alvin Dumduma, Project Coordinator for ChildFund

The transition to digital tools significantly improved data collection efficiency, enabling timely interventions and informed decision-making by streamlining processes and giving them access to critical insights. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of digital data technologies was crucial to understanding and responding to the needs of vulnerable children and families. Data collected with KoboToolbox helped adapt project implementation to deploy additional support for child laborers, especially for access to education and livelihood interventions for families. Using the insights from the data, the project team made informed, data-driven decisions, enabling them to continue project activities and provide urgent support services.

“We can immediately assess the needs of the children and whether they are still studying or not. So that’s the beauty of [using KoboToolbox].” - Robello Tizon, BuildCA2P volunteer

Using KoboToolbox to collect vital data for the BuildCA2P Project’s reporting and referral system, ChildFund was equipped with timely and accurate information to track exploitative labor practices and advance child protection efforts. In March 2023, the child labor reporting system was serving nearly 4,000 children across three provinces. By the end of the project in September 2024, the reporting system had reached an additional 1,500 children—giving the project team access to crucial insights to deliver services and support to a total of 5,483 at-risk and exploited children across the country.

Looking ahead, the adoption of KoboToolbox has emerged as a best practice for similar projects. ChildFund’s success in digitizing data collection for the BuildCA2P Project helped them to advocate for additional funding from the European Union, enabling them to expand their use of KoboToolbox to support even more villages and municipalities. As part of ChildFund’s ongoing efforts to build local capacities, they will continue to deliver KoboToolbox training to CSOs, volunteers, and government agencies to strengthen local data collection skills, project planning, and impact measurement.

With improved access to efficient data tools, local organizations gain a more comprehensive understanding of child labor conditions and more effective methods to monitor and protect children who are engaged in or at risk of child labor. ChildFund’s efforts in the Philippines have established effective reporting systems to support CSOs to deliver targeted interventions to better safeguard children and achieve meaningful change, including improving access to education, food security, and sustainable livelihood opportunities. With the BuildCA2P Project extending its impact beyond immediate child protection to foster a brighter future for children and their families, the initiative helps to break chronic cycles of exploitation. By intervening in factors that affect children’s vulnerability to exploitation, ChildFund is making progress towards systemic change and, ultimately, contributing to the eradication of child labor practices.