PHILIPPINES: Child torture allegations
ABC Asia Pacific Programme 14/4/03
Radio National/News Radio/Radio Australia
PHILIPPINES: Child torture allegations
Amnesty International has released a scathing report on the detention of children in the Philippines, accusing police and prison officers of rape as well as mental and physical abuse. The report, released world-wide today, warns of children as young as five being imprisoned in appalling conditions for petty street crimes. While at least eight others, all aged under 18, sit on death row. Amnesty International has witnessed first hand the atrocities of children in detention in the Philippines.
Presenter/Interviewer:
Linda Lopresti
Speakers: Russell Thirgood, Amnesty International's Australian
President
THIRGOOD: "There's a whole range of abuses ranging from torture and ill-treatment, punching, slapping of children who are being detained both at the time of arrest and while in detention, electric shocks, sexual abuse including rape. We have children being incarcerated with adults, the adults generally get the beds and children are sleeping on the floor."
"In some cases we've got kids sleeping on cement floors that are wet with urine, sleeping next to a small hole and the hole is being used as a toilet, it's infested with insects, so it's not a very good condition at all."
LOPRESTI: How old are
these children?
THIRGOOD: "The youngest
that I saw was a five year old ranging all the way up to 17 years of age."
LOPRESTI: What kind of crimes could a five year old commit?
THIRGOOD: "We're dealing with children who have pretty much escaped situations of domestic violence and sexual abuse at home, so they leave home, they run away and then enter the streets. So the crimes range from things such as sniffing glue to theft and there are also other more serious crimes, we have a 17 year old girl who allegedly kidnapped an older lady, that older lady was returned, however the child who was involved in this alleged crime has been sentenced to death."
LOPRESTI: And there
are other young people that were aged under 18 at the time of their alleged
offences, which are reportedly also facing the death penalty. What crimes
have they allegedly committed?
THIRGOOD: "I don't have
those details but we know that there are at least eight young people who
were children at the time of the offence who have been sentenced to death."
LOPRESTI: You talked earlier about abuses, who are the perpetrators of the abuse?
THIRGOOD: "There's a range of perpetrators here but the main culprits are police officers. I'll use another example to demonstrate what I'm talking about, we have two boys, one of the age of 10, the other 14, they were arrested in 2001, they were taken by police to a cemetery and they were beaten there by the police and the complainant also came along and beat those boys. So in that situation we had police officers and the complainant."
LOPRESTI: There are actually a number of legal safeguards, which do exist in the Philippines to protect children who come into conflict with the law. Why aren't they are being utilised, I mean why do these children not have access to lawyers, social workers for example?
THIRGOOD: "Linda you've hit the nail on the head, this is the problem that we have with the Philippines. On paper the Philippines human rights looks very, very good, the Philippines were one of the first countries to sign the convention on the rights of the child and they've incorporated these international obligations into domestic law."
"Now the problem is that for some reason these rights aren't being translated into any effective protection of children. Children are not having access to social workers, they're having no access to lawyers, we've got some cases of kids, 10 year olds, 14 year olds who are approached by police officers to sign very complicated legal documents, sometimes in languages that they don't even understand."
"So I suspect the situation
that we're dealing with here is about educating the police officers involved
and creating some political will within the Philippines to ensure that their
laws, which are generally very, very good are enforced. Simple things that
can be implemented easily like ensuring that any child who is detained is
immediately medically examined. Secondly, detention should be a last resort
anyway and if there is a need for detention then please do not detain
children with adults where they are particularly vulnerable."
LOPRESTI: Obviously though there are very, very serious defects in the administration of the juvenile system in the Philippines. Would you describe that system as completely incompetent or would you go so far as to describe it as corrupt?
THIRGOOD: "Amnesty is not in the business of putting those sorts of labels on the system. Obviously the system is not working but our job is to firstly bring these matters to the attention of the Filipino government, hopefully we can work constructively with the Filipino government, if not, these are violations which I suspect that the world community won't tolerate and I hope that our elected politicians will be raising these matters of concern, and by doing that bring about constructive change."
