[From the web] War Children in the Philippines by Carlos H. Conde/HRW

Dispatches: War Children in the Philippines By Carlos H. Conde Human Rights Watch September 20, 2013 The day before the clashes started, 15-year-old Hassan’s grandfather took him from their village on Basilan Island in the southern Philippines to attend what his grandfather described as a “peace rally” in nearby Zamboanga City. Three days later, I…

Human Rights Online Philippines

September 21, 2013

2–4 minutes

Basilan Island, Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, MNLF, Moro National Liberation Front, Philippine, Zamboanga, Zamboanga City

Dispatches: War Children in the Philippines
By Carlos H. Conde
Human Rights Watch
September 20, 2013

The day before the clashes started, 15-year-old Hassan’s grandfather took him from their village on Basilan Island in the southern Philippines to attend what his grandfather described as a “peace rally” in nearby Zamboanga City. Three days later, I encountered Hassan in a cramped Zamboanga jail cell along with young menarrested for being alleged members of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

The toll from the fighting between the Muslim rebels and government forces, which began on September 9, includes dozens killed and wounded, 10,000 houses burned, and 120,000 residents displaced. Many civilians are still being held hostage by the rebels. But children, like Hassan, pay their own steep price.

Hassan denies that he’s a child combatant for the MNLF and the authorities have since relocated him to a youth detention center. Other alleged child soldiers include Kiram, 14, and Abdul, 17, who had spent five days in police custody when I met them on Wednesday, handcuffed to three adults inside a police station.

Human Rights Watch has previously reported on incidents in which the Philippines armed forces have falsely identified children as “child warriors” and paraded them before the media. But even if Hassan, Kiram, and Abdul really are child combatants, they’re victims. According to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, armed groups such as the MNLF should not, under any circumstance, recruit or use in hostilities anyone under the age of 18. The conditions of these children’s detention – that they’re sharing facilities with adults – also violate the government’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the Philippines ratified in 1990. If these children have indeed been used in the fighting by the MNLF, they are entitled to psychological services and assistance in social reintegration.

Over the past week, Human Rights Watch has also documented the rebels’ use of children as hostages and human shields, some of whom have been killed and wounded during military operations. Meanwhile, Zamboanga’s evacuation centers, including a sports stadium, overflow with thousands of children who are homeless and unable to go to school.

Long after the guns go silent and the soldiers go home, the children of Zamboanga will wrestle with the traumas of these days of violence.

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/09/20/dispatches-war-children-philippines

All submissions are republished and redistributed in the same way that it was originally published online and sent to us. We may edit submission in a way that does not alter or change the original material.

Human Rights Online Philippines does not hold copyright over these materials. Author/s and original source/s of information are retained including the URL contained within the tagline and byline of the articles, news information, photos etc.