Human rights advocates rightly fight in order to prohibit child labor especially when the children are forced to work almost like slaves in very dangerous and exploitive situations. However, 
unfortunately here in the garbage dump child labor is almost a necessity. Of course, working in such a dirty and poisonous environment is a danger to the children’s health, but some have no choice. It is either work alongside one’s parents or starve.
I estimate less than half our children graduate from grade school because so many of them, especially the boys, quit school in grade three or four. Many are hungry and cannot endure sitting in the classrooms with their stomachs growling. There is also money to be made in the dump, which is a great temptation to quit school. Even an eight-year-old child can earn enough in one day of scavenging to buy food for the whole family and have some left over to buy new clothes, candy or a bottle of soda pop, which are luxuries here.
One day when I visited the dump, I had my camera with me. 
Most of the children wanted their picture taken and made stiff or ridiculous poses. Two almost totally ignored me and just continued working. So I snapped their pictures. The boy’s name is Lee-boy. He is probably about seven or eight years old. I never got to ask the young girl’s name. These are just two of the hundreds of children working in our parish. At present there is no other way of life for them.
In the picture Lee-boy holds a “kalahig” which is the tool the scavengers use to stab the trash and throw it in their sacks. It is just a sharpened hook of metal with a wooden handle.
In another picture Bebe is resting with me on top a pile of trash after a long day of scavenging. Bebe was about twelve at the time. When you live around a garbage dump and earn a living from it, you get used to it. After a while it does not even seem to smell so bad. One can even lie and rest on top of it. It is amazing how humans can adapt to such situations. What is even more amazing is that they can keep their dignity while doing it.