( 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 did n'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 has n'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 . Much of the sugar produced in the fields here ends up in coffee shops , on kitchen tables and on store shelves across the world . `` We do not deny that child labor exists in our industry , '' said Edith Villanueva , the president and COO of the Sugar Industry Foundation . `` It 's a practice among families who are paid piecemeal for their work . They like to employ their children because there 's more income for the families . '' Villanueva said that paying workers more so they 're not tempted to use their children has not worked in the past . She cites the strong cultural ties of families working together in the fields as one of the main problems . `` If you do n't change their attitude and their values , then you do n't change their way of life . There 's a long-term solution and it 's really education . We feel children should want to go to school , they should be kept in school , and aware of the rights of the children , the rights of the child to go to school and the right of the child to play , '' she said . The child labor problem is so overt and widespread in this region that Villanueva says the Sugar Industry Foundation and the Coca-Cola Foundation are paying to build a four-room high school that is set to open later this month . The Coca-Cola company is one of the largest buyers of sugar in the world and the sugar factories fed by the fields of Northern Mindanao call Coca-Cola one of their main customers . In a statement to CNN , Coca-Cola said it `` does not support , encourage or endorse any form of child labor in our operations throughout our global bottling system or in our supplier network . '' The company says it conducts continuous assessments of its operations to ensure strong policies and practices are in place to help avoid child labor . In September 2010 , the Coca-Cola Foundation says it joined a coalition of the local government , the ILO and private industry to remove children from sugarcane fields with the hope of eradicating child labor in the Bukidnon region . The Philippines government has also pledged to reduce child labor by 75 % by 2015 . By then Dante will be 17-years-old . It 's more likely that he will have graduated to cutting sugar cane than high school .
Child labor is common practice is Philippine region of Philippines . Children as young as 15 can work each day in sugar fields . Mindanao government plans to reduce child labor by 60 % by 2015 . Some suggest cultural ties to families working together make it harder to eradicate .