Campaign Letter in Support of the Juvenile Justice Bill
18 October 2002
Hon. Senator Francis Pangilinan
Chair of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights
Philippine Senate
Roxas Blvd., Pasay City,
Metro Manila, Philippines
Dear Hon. Senator
Pangilinan,
The Preda Foundation has
been nominated for the second time for the Nobel Peace Prize. First in
2001 by the members of the British Parliament Children's Rights
Committee and now nominated for 2003 by the Parliamentarians of the
German Parliament Human Rights Committee. This is to help promote peace
based on justice for children. We are making contributions to the
proposed Juvenile Justice Bill which needs urgent work of consolidation
of the various contributions.
According to a Newsweek
report in August 2001, up to 20,000 children and youth are prisoners
throughout the Philippines. Preda has documented the individual cases of
teenagers, mostly boys, arrested and illegally detained for weeks,
sometimes months without being charged or arraigned or seeing legal
counsel .We are sending you the complete updated report on these cases
which we sent to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention. This documents the violations of the UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child and the International Human Rights Law. The
Philippines is remiss in its international obligations in this regard to
children.
The children some as young
as eight, twelve and fourteen are held with adult criminals and accused
of petty crimes. They are forced with threats or torture to confess even
if they are innocent and the police need a success to please the public.
The children are jailed for vagrancy, but many are homeless and have
nowhere to go. Some are victims of adult criminals who control them by
giving food and shelter, threats and even drugs and train them to be
pickpockets or petty thieves. The police are ignorant of the law and the
kids are treated as guilty before they are charged and punished with
beatings and cigarette burns. Two were brought to cemetery, ten and
fourteen years old, and threatened with execution if they did not
confess to a crime they did not commit.
Children in prison are
mixed at times with adult criminals and are introduced into criminal
ways. Some become the sex toys of adult prisoners and sometimes the
guards have been known to rape the girls arrested on the streets or in
bars accused of being prostitutes. The bar operators and the officials
giving licenses go free. In Jail they have to work to eat and are
exposed to TB, AIDS and drug abuse.
In some prisons the basic
needs of human life and dignity are absent. Beside a chronic lack of
justice, some prisons and holding cells don't even have plastic plates
and spoons so the kids must eat from a newspaper with their hands. There
is no water in many of the cells either to wash or cool off from the
oppressively humid heat. The toilet is frequently a stinking hole in
the corner, or a filthy toilet bowel or bucket with no running water.
The Preda Rescue Team
recently visited the Baguio City jail among others, and found 33
children in a basement prison that is more like a medieval dungeon than
a detention center for children. This in a city that prides itself as a
proud tourist destination but the officials have not heard of the
Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Since we began, we have helped dozens of children in jail, many we have had released. A recent national workshop with many of these child prisoners participating revealed gross violations of their human rights. Almost all have been abused and their rights violated. Many are abandoned and forgotten by the authorities. One boy is in prison in the San Fernando City Jail for 18 months without being arraigned.
We want to change the harsh and cruel way the system treats children and teenagers and establish the true respect that Filipinos have for their children, a reflection of the nation before the international community. We are campaigning for a fair Juvenile Justice Bill. We are asking the Defenders of Children around the world to campaign on this issue.
Sincerely,
Father Shay Cullen
Founder and President
PREDA Foundation
Please write your comment of support here, sign it with address and
mail it to the Senator.
