(CNN) -- Barefoot and covered in dirt and sweat, 14-year-old Dante Campilan pulls weeds from orderly rows of sugar cane. 

Wearing an oversized red cap to protect him from the scorching Philippine sun, Dante is doing work that should be reserved for men, not children. 

Earning 150 pesos ($3.50) for a seven-hour day, Dante has been a child laborer in the Philippine region of Mindanao since he was seven years old. He says he does it to help his parents, but he is just one of many children who are part of an illegal economic system of child labor. 

The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates 2.4 million child workers are in the Philippines. Many of them, according to the ILO, are in rural areas working in fields and mines. The organization estimates 60% work in hazardous conditions. 

Alongside Dante is 13-year-old Alvic James, who dropped out of school when he was in the first grade. Back then, he explained, his family didn't have enough money to eat. Alvic says he wants to learn to read and write but because he is needed in the fields he has no time to go to school. 

When the boys turn 15 or 16, they'll move on to the more hazardous job of cutting sugar cane. That's currently the job of 16-year-old Elmar Paran, who hasn't been to school since he was a young child, sentencing him to a future in the fields. 

The use of child laborers in the sugar fields of Northern Mindanao is so common that landowner Angeles Penda shrugs it off as a way of life. "The parents beg us to include their children to work," she said. 
What region of Philippines is responsible for sugar cane work for children?
 Mindanao