Philippines Campaigns For Prevention Of Children Exploitation, Abuses

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Feb. 09, 2009) – The Philippines began the week-long observance of the 13th National Awareness Week for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation.

Through Proclamation No. 731, the country marks the national awaresness week beginning on February 8. The Regional Sub-Committee for the Welfare of Children (RSCWC) spearheads the event with the theme, “Sekswal na Pang-aabuso sa Bata, Nangyayari Saan Man: Karahasang Dapat Wakasan.”

Social Welfare Undersecretary Alicia Bala said the annual observance aims to promote awareness on the problem of child sexual abuse and exploitation, and advocate respect for laws and ordinances on children. Bala urged all sectors and organizations to initiate activities and participate in the various undertakings related to child protection. (Carmela Duron)

Child traffickers prowl Mindanao evacuation centers

COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Nov. 23, 2008) - The massive dislocation of families due to the raging armed conflict in Mindanao has spurred the trafficking of children, Cotabato Rep. Emmylou Mendoza warned Sunday.

"A growing number of young girls and boys whose families have been displaced by constant armed strife have become extremely vulnerable to trafficking by illegal job recruiters and all sorts of predators," Mendoza said in a statement.

Many of the underage victims risk mistreatment and exploitation as sweatshop laborers, street slaves and child prostitutes under the employ of gangsters, or illegal workers abroad.

"Sadly, the condition in many parts of Mindanao that are being tormented by armed clashes has become highly conducive for child traffickers," Mendoza said.

She appealed to the Department of Social Welfare and Development as well as operators of passenger buses, inter-island vessels and airlines to exercise greater vigilance and take extra precautions against child traffickers.

"One practical way to discourage trafficking is for domestic passenger carriers to check the identity and age of every traveling minor, and to ascertain whether the child is accompanied by a verified family member or relative, or by a person who is not related to the minor," Mendoza said.

She said unrelated adults chaperoning traveling youngsters should be checked, and their identities should be recorded and verified.

A leading non-government group closely monitoring human trafficking in the country has corroborated Mendoza's apprehension.

Human traffickers are definitely preying on children dislocated by rebel attacks and the operations of government troops running after them in Mindanao, according to the Visayan Forum Foundation Inc.

The foundation said syndicates have been prowling evacuation camps for potential young laborers for overseas deployment.

It added that 34 minors have already been rescued by social workers from traffickers that sneaked them out of conflict zones in Mindanao and tried to deploy them to the Middle East on spurious travel papers.

The Visayan Forum works for the welfare of trafficked women and children as well as marginalized migrants, especially those employed in the invisible and informal sectors, like domestic helpers. The foundation runs two shelters in Davao City.

Since 2001, the foundation has rescued and aided more than 32,000 victims and potential victims of trafficking, and has assisted in the filing of 66 criminal cases on behalf of 166 victims.

According to the National Disaster Coordinating Council, since August, more than 600,000 civilians, including over 40,000 children, have been displaced as a result of military-rebel clashes and armed incursions by wayward Moro Islamic Liberation Front factions across three regions in Mindanao.

Some of the evacuees are in 123 evacuation centers while others have sought refuge elsewhere, mostly in the homes of relatives and friends in other nearby towns.

Besides Cotabato, the three other provinces bearing the brunt of the armed conflict are Lanao del Norte, Maguindanao and Shariff Kabunsuan.

Since August, the fighting in Northern Mindanao, the provinces of South Cotabato, Sarangani and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao also caused more than P1.2 billion-worth of damage to farms and fisheries, industries and public infrastructure.

Girl Who Saw How Soldiers Abused Boy Is Herself Under Threat In Southern Philippines

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / August 29, 2008) – Two Philippine Air Force soldiers accused of maltreating a boy have allegedly threatened a witness to the crime in Davao City in Mindanao.

The family of a ten-year old girl, who witnessed how the soldiers burned the boy with cigarettes, has sought police protection. They claimed the two soldiers - Sgt. Manuel Doria and A2C Rex Dimaculangan – allegedly threatened to detain the girl if she testifies in court against them.

Police said the two servicemen were charged with slight physical injuries at a local court. It said the victim’s family accused the soldiers of torturing the six-year old boy on July 14 while he was playing near the air force base. The soldiers were drank when the incident happened.

Human rights advocates urged the military to dismiss the two abusive soldiers and for Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and Rep. Prospero Nograles to act on the welfare and safety of both the victim and the witness. (Romy Bwaga)

Airmen Accused Of Torturing Boy Face Charges In Davao City

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / July 18, 2008) – Philippine prosecutors filed charges against two air force servicemen accused of torturing a boy in Davao City.

The two soldiers - Sgt. Manuel Doria and A2C Rex Dimaculangan - were charged with slight physical injuries at a local court house.

Police said the victim’s family accused the servicemen of torturing the six-year old boy on July 14 while playing near the air force base. It said the soldiers, who were both drank, burned the boy with cigarettes.

The soldiers, police said, even shaped a cross on the boy’s stomach with their cigarettes.The boy’s family earlier appealed to Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte to help them get justice and for the military to file charges against the erring servicemen. The mayor is known to punish abusive soldiers and policemen. (Romy Bwaga)

Two Airmen Accused of Torturing Boy In South RP

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / July 16, 2008) – Two Philippine Air Force servicemen are being investigated for torturing a six-year old boy in the southern port city of Davao, police said Wednesday.

Police said the boy’s family accused the servicemen of torturing the boy on Monday. It said the boy was playing near the air force base when the soldiers, who were both drank, burned him with cigarettes.

The soldiers, police said, even shaped a crucifix on the boy’s stomach with their cigarettes.

The boy’s family appealed to Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte to help them get justice and for the military to file charges against the erring servicemen. The mayor is known to punish abusive soldiers and policemen. (Romy Bwaga)

Photo: Children In Dangerous Jobs

A boy sits dangerously on the edge of the roof of a passenger jeep in the southern Philippine port city of Zamboanga. Many children are forced to work, instead of going to school, to help feed their poor family. Child labor is illegal in the Philippines, but still rampant in many places, especially in Mindanao, where poverty rate is high. (Mindanao Examiner Photo Service)

Soldiers of Misfortune: Children as Weapons

A child warrior of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front during a combat training in the southern Philippinbes. (Mindanao Examiner Photo Service/Mark Navales)

MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / 02 Jun) - For 377 days, Gracia Burnham, an American missionary, was held captive by Abu Sayyaf, a Filipino group associated with Al Qaeda.
During that time, she experienced horrors we can’t even imagine. She also gained an insight to one of the world’s most pressing issues.

I’m not talking about Islamic extremism, although Burnham obviously has some hard-earned insights into that phenomenon. I’m talking about the use of child soldiers.

After being kidnapped, Gracia and her husband Martin, whose story is told in the June 4th issue of the New Republic, were starved and force-marched through the jungle. Along the way they saw other hostages beheaded and raped. Finally, she saw her husband Martin die after a botched rescue attempt.

One of Burnham’s principal tormentors was a 14-year-old Abu Sayyaf soldier named Ahmed.

Burnham admits to loathing him for “hoarding food when she had none, throwing stones at her while she bathed—fully clothed—in the river, and pushing her along the trail saying ‘faster, faster.’”

And yet Burnham prayed for a way to love Ahmed. She got her chance after he was wounded in a firefight and soiled himself. When she saw that he was embarrassed, she thought of her own son and felt love for Ahmed. She washed Ahmed’s clothes in the river before he was taken into the jungle on a stretcher, bound, gagged and “stark raving mad.” To this day, she has no idea what happened to him.

Apart from being loved by his victim, Ahmed’s story is typical. On any given day, there are an estimated 250,000 children, some as young as eight, being used by “state-run armies, paramilitaries and guerilla groups around the world.” They’re employed as soldiers, porters, sex slaves and even human mine detectors.

In Uganda alone, 25,000 to 30,000 children have been abducted by an especially brutal group calling itself “The Lord’s Resistance Army.” Children are brutalized and then made to brutalize and kill others, including their own siblings.

Other countries where child soldiers are being used include Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Burundi, to name but a few. However the children are “recruited,” the result is the same: “their health and lives are endangered and their childhoods are sacrificed.”

If all of this comes as a surprise to you, you’re not alone. The war in Uganda, never mind who’s fighting it, has been called a “forgotten war.” That’s the first thing that needs to be changed. The church needs to draw attention to what, by any reasonable measure, is a humanitarian crisis. To help you understand the issue, we’ve got some resources at our website.

You may also want to learn about a recently-introduced bill called “The Child Soldiers Prevention Act.” Co-sponsored by Senator Brownback, it seeks to put into action what the Congress has already put into words: that the United States should “lead efforts . . . to end this abuse of human rights.”

Not surprisingly, Christians are among the bill’s principal sponsors and supporters. Because if Gracia Burnham could love Ahmed, the child soldier who tormented her, the rest of us surely can at least speak out on behalf of the many thousands like him.

In the Philippines, child warriors are rampant across the country's regions -- from northern Luzon to the Sulu Archipelgo in the south, rebels and terrorist groups and private armies of political warlords exploit these innocent children.

The use children to spy on military and police and often trained in combat to kill. The Moro National Liberation Front, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the New People's Army and the Abu Sayyaf and even the Jemaah Islamiya used children in the Philippines as combatants and little is being done by the government to prevent all these abuses. (Breakpoint.org with Chuck Colson,this commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley)

Woman Gets 20 Years For Pimping Teener In South RP

DAVAO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / 30 Mar) – A Philippine court convicted a woman for pimping a teenager in Davao City on the southern island of Mindanao.

Judge Wenceslao Ibabao sentenced Lucita Magnifico to 20 years in prison after finding her guilty of the violating the country’s Child Abuse Law.

Magnifico, a street hawker, had offered the 17-year old victim to her clients in exchange for money in various occasions in 2005.

The teenager testified against the woman that prostitutes call Ate Luz and told the court that she was offered to different men who wanted to have sexual favors in exchange for some money.

She said the woman paid her some money as commission for the sex, but she later sought the help of the police and filed charges against Magnifico.

Prostitution is rampant in southern Philippines. (Romy Bwaga)

Ama Inakusahan Ng Child Abuse!

ANTIQUE (Mindanao Examiner / 27 Feb) – Nahaharap sa kasong kriminal ang isang ama matapos na umano’y pagmalupitan nito ang sariling anak sa bayan ng San Jose.

Ayon sa pulisya ay sag alit ng amang si Lyndon Capistrano Sr., ay binato nito ng pamalong may pako ang anak na si Junior at bumaon ito sa bungo ng 12-anyos na bata sa kanilang lugar sa Barangay Durog kamakalawa.

Kasalukuyang nasa pagamutan ang bata at pinagaaralan ng hustoi ng mga duktor kung paanong aalisin ng hindi malalagay sa panganib ang utak ng biktima.

Nagalit um,ano ang ama sa anak ng ito’y tawagin upang kuman ng tanghalian. Naglalaro sa tabing-ilog ang bata kasama ang mga kaibigan. Sa takot na magulpi ay tumakbo ito ngunit hinabol naman ito ng ama at ng hindi maabutan ay ibinato ang pamalo.

Sising-sisi naman ang ama sa naganap at nadala lamang umano ito ng kanyang galit. Sinabi ng ama na mahal na mahal niya ang sariling anak at pulos dasal ang ginagawa upang maligtas ang bata sa kapahamakan. (Mindanao Examiner)