More than 200,000 Filipino children were victims of human rights violations from 2001 to mid-2006, a majority of them caught in the middle of armed conflicts, according to a report of the Children’s Rehabilitation Center (CRC).
The report was included in the book “Uncounted Lives: Children, Women and Conflict in the Philippines,” commissioned by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).
The CRC is a non-government institution serving children and families who are victims of state violence in the Philippines. It focuses its services on children in the rural and urban areas who suffer physical health problems, emotional disorders, and social maladjustments due to traumatic events like arrest, torture, forced displacement, strafing, bombing, massacre, disappearance, and other forms of human rights violations.
The CRC has documented 800 incidents of human rights violations involving 215,233 children as victims from 2001 to July 2006.
These cases include 58 children killed and another 58 who survived attempts on their lives. Some 40 children were maimed and 17 children were subjected to different forms of torture and humiliation.
The CRC said 215,060 children were forced to evacuate as a result of counter-insurgency operations.
The CRC also reported that 10 children have disappeared or become “desaparecidos.” Five children were victims of sexual harassment and three were victims of rape by the military, 51 were victims of illegal search and seizure, 63 were victims of coercion, 69 were victims of illegal arrest and detention, 40 were victims of physical assault and injury and 196 were victims of threats and intimidation.
In the period covered, the CRC also said there were 106 orphaned children who witnessed the killing of their parents or relatives.
Unicef country representative Dr. Nicholas Alipui said that the continuous persecution of children in war-torn areas makes them “grow naturally into acquiring knowledge of war, conflict, how to use arms, how to spy and how to report.”
“This whole new phenomena which is really about children in armed conflict is totally unacceptable to Unicef,” Alipui told reporters, adding that “children should be in school and any child that is remotely or directly linked within an armed group should be released and freed to be able to pursue childhood aspirations, go to school and be peaceful.”
Alipui said based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, “one child is more than enough to be involved in any armed conflict.
“Apart from the loss of the mother or parent I don’t believe that there is more devastating (experience) for a child than to be caught in armed conflict. It is actually immaterial how many children we are talking about because universally every child whether one, 10, 20 or 100, has the same right everywhere,” he said.
Alipui said armed conflict adversely affects children’s health, education, protection and social well-being, and called on the government to protect children from the effects of armed conflict and violence.
“Let us keep the focus on the impact of armed conflict and violence against children because for as long as that continues, this country will not be at peace,” he said.
Meanwhile, Alipui said they would furnish the government, including the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine National Police and the Department of Social Welfare and Development, Department of Health, and the Department of Education, copies of the book to give their side on the results of the study. – Helen Flores