Introduction to subhuman jail conditions of women and children in Olongapo

SUMMARY OF THE INTERVIEWS
WITH 18 STREET CHILDREN IN OLONGAPO WHO COMPLAIN OF
ACTS OF ABUSE IN THE CITY GOVERNMENT-RUN OCARE
(OLONGAPO CENTER FOR ASSISTANCE, REHABILITATION AND EMPOWERMENT)

Most Child-Friendly City Award of the Philippines
The Olongapo Center for Assistance, Rehabilitation and Empowerment (OCARE) is a project of Richard and Kate Gordon established in 1998. Olongapo City won the Most Child-friendly City of the Philippines in 2000 and 2002.

Secret cells for children
The study comprises of 18 street children. It records the fact that there are secret cells where they are locked up and mistreated. Children and minors from 8 to 15 are found frequently imprisoned in the cells but not everyday. The cells are small claustrophobic, they measure a mere 1.5 meters to three meters. There are no beds, furniture, faucet, hand basin or toilet. The air is full of the stench from the feces in the blocked toilet hole. There is insufficient air and light. Only a small slit high on the wall. Sometime there are as many as 14 children in the four cells at one time. The children are sometimes mixed with mentally disturbed adult women. All windows, doors and ceiling are barred as in a prison.

A hole in the floor is a toilet that is blocked and overflowing with feces. Insects, cockroaches, ants, mosquitoes endanger the health of the children. They are bitten, have skin rashes, sores, malnourished and bruised from the beatings and kicks they receive in the OCARE center. The food is inadequate and they go hungry. They are beaten, punched, kicked, hit with wood, padlocks, bamboo, broom handle. They are doused with water day and night and sleep on the concrete floor when it is wet. They get no exercise, stimulation, education, proper hygiene and sanitation, no visitors, no parental contact, no legal rights.

The research
The street children were contacted on the streets, under bridges, in doorways, the market and the back alleys by the social researchers, from January until the present. The street children in the research are: 13 BOYS ages eight to fifteen and 5 GIRLS ages nine to fifteen. There are hundreds more children roaming the streets and are incarcerated from time to time when caught for vagrancy, failing to drop-in into the OCARE, sniffing glue, sleeping in doorways, on the street.

Swedish students went to visit the OCARE center in February 2003 and their reports are included as supporting documentation.

Photographs of the conditions of the secret cells were very difficult to get as the children are sealed off from visitors. Never the less the researchers were able to get the photographic documentation of women and minors behind bars. The testimony of the children, as young as 8 years, indicate that jailing is a common practice as well as barbaric treatment expected of a concentrated camp.

When there are visitors the children are taken out and washed and fed as seen by the Swedish students. All 18 children have experienced being arrested, beaten and put in the cells. The abuses are listed below. The children are identified for the proper authorities in this report.

Acts of abuse reported by the children in OCARE, Olongapo City

Imprisoned in the cells alone
With the mentally disturbed women
With other children, as many as 14 at one time.

Beaten up in the OCARE center
Punched in the stomach
Hit with a padlock on the head in the cell
The social worker throws water on them at night

4 days to one month in cells
14 at one time in the cells together
Girls in the cells of OCARE
Gven leftover food.
Food left outside the bars on the floor (like animal they eat through the bars.)
Kicked by Armim
Jailed up to 4 days.
Cells infested by mosquitoes and ants
Kicked by De Catorya wearing heavy boots.
Beaten with a broom by Thena
Left hungry without food
Caught and roughed up by police and thrown in the back of the truck
Kicked by Ullysis when child is sleeping on the cell floor
Beaten with a bamboo
Beaten with a piece of wood on the head by social worker named Dolly
No sleep because of the stench of the feces in the blocked toilet
Bitten by the ants.
Sleeping on concrete floor
Sleeping on the wet floor when the staff throw water on them
Deprived of food, eat once a day, guard banging the bars, hit the minor
Can’t go to the toilet
Beaten and kicked in the center
Deprived of showers
All punished and jailed if one escapes
The solvent glue is rubbed into their hair
They are made to work by cleaning the cells
They are hidden away if visitors arrive.
Deprived of water
Slapped on the face
kicked in the face.