The youth in Cebu City have claimed that irresponsible parents who fail to guide their children are also partly to blame if their sons or daughters later become problems of the community.
Youth leader and councilor Glena Bontuyan said if a parent allows his or her children to work even in hazardous conditions in order to satisfy their needs as well as their vices, this can already be considered irresponsible parenting.
Bontuyan, president of the Sangguniang Kabataan Federation in Cebu City, said some parents engage in gambling thus not only displaying a negative example to their children, but neglecting to perform their duties towards their children.
Some parents are also just relying on the government’s feeding program without looking for other ways of providing for the nutritional needs of their children while others abandon their children forcing them to beg in order to survive, while other children suffered verbal and emotional abuse.
Bontuyan said other problems of the children that are identified by the youths includes child labor, child trafficking, loitering at night, drug addiction, smoking, prostitution, pre-marital sex, lack of education, child abuse and the parent-child communication gap.
Children who are exposed to child labor are those engaged in selling newspapers, rugs, cigarettes and other goods in the streets exposing themselves to danger of being hit by the vehicles.
Another problem about child trafficking involves children being recruited by foreigners for cybersex. —Rene U. Borromeo/BRP