The rape of caged children must be stopped 
(republishing, copying, no restrictions)
By: Father Shay Cullen
The Filipino translator was shocked and began to weep. She could not continue the translation of the videotaped interview of a young boy recently rescued from a Metro Manila prison. Jose, a small 14-year-old, shy and embarrassed, found the courage to describe how he was dragged into a toilet at night in the prison cell by a big, brute of a man who attempted to rape him. Jose resisted and squirmed and twisted out of the rapist's wicked embrace.
Pedro, a younger boy, was not strong enough to resist. Rendered docile and submissive by fear and intimidation, the sex-starved criminals raped him repeatedly. Pedro was rewarded with extra food and a place near the electric fan to ease the smell of urine and faces that pervades the cells.
Jose was beaten and made to clean out, with his bare hands, the blocked toilet full of excrement. This abuse is a common experience in the hundreds of jails throughout the Philippines where minors are detained in proximity to adults or older boys in violation of Philippine and international law. Jose's experience was told in the latest ITN/CNN report on the state of Philippine jails where minors are easily available to adults.
Many hoped that the first ITN/CNN report last August 2005 would move the wealthy politicians that live in sumptuous luxury to change the situation, if that failed then the shame of such abuse would do it. It was an empty hope, little has changed.
The minors in one jail were sent to a youth detention camp in Tanay, Rizal, and South of Manila. Last week, there were 18 more minors in that same horrid jail cell so overcrowded that even the cockroaches have fled. We were not allowed to visit them in their cell. They were brought out into the yard, dazed from hunger and cramped conditions. Some seemed traumatized.
Prison officials claim that
exposing these conditions blackens the image of the Philippines and the
reports must be stopped. Visits to the minors in their cells in some
prisons are banned and legal undertakings and onerous conditions have to
be fulfilled before the kids can be visited and given food, medicine and
legal help.
This is a deliberate harassment and a serious violation of the minors
human and civil rights. It proves that the officials have much to be
ashamed of and covered up.
The Comprehensive Juvenile Justice Bill was recently passed by the Senate and does away with the medieval model of punitive justice in favour of restorative justice. It rises the age of criminal liability from 9 years to 15. This bill sees the young person as someone in need of recovery and rehabilitation if indeed proven guilty. Most accused minors are not guilty of serious crimes.
Out of 114 boys rescued from the Metro Manila prisons by the Preda Foundation, the majority have their charges dismissed. The shining lights in the middle of this dehumanizing darkness of kids behind bars are the judges. Under the enlightened guidance of the Philippine Supreme Court led by the reform-minded Chief Justice Reynato Puno, judges in the family courts are increasingly practising diversionary and restorative justice. They are transferring youngsters especially those 15 and younger to value formation training centers like Preda in Olongapo City, a model of progressive best practice.
There are no guards and gates, padlocks and lock downs. The freedom and family environment ensure that the youth have a stake in remaining at the center and training for the future. It means too that they are attending their court hearings without fail with Preda social workers.
The need for a larger home for these children is urgent. A request was made for the use of an abandoned government building and a piece of land in Castillejos, Zambales for a children's home. Alas, after one year of waiting, only a crumbling trashed warehouse smelling of goat droppings and urine with huge holes in the roof was offered under onerous conditions. It had to be refused.
The kind of Christianity practiced by those who know and allow children to be caged like chickens and raped in prisons has to be fake, dead and meaningless. [End]
Fr. Shay Cullen is a Columban missionary: PREDA Centre, Kalaklan, Olongapo City. www.preda.org
