Patty Pasion
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Published 5:57 PM, June 16, 2016
Updated 12:30 PM, June 17, 2016
PH ranks high in global report on children's rights
MANILA, Philippines The Philippines is among the ranks of
developed countries that uphold the rights of children, the 2016
KidsRights Index report found.
The country placed 73rd out of the 163 countries surveyed by
Amsterdam-based organization KidsRights Foundation. The
Philippines got an overall score of 0.791.
The survey, commissioned in partnership with Erasmus University
Rotterdam, assessed United Nations (UN) member countries that
have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. They
surveyed countries based on how they uphold the childrens rights
to life, health, education, and how they provide a good
environment for the children. (READ: UNICEF: PH 'a little behind'
in upholding children's rights)
Life, health, education, protection
The Philippines got the highest ranking in the childs rights
environment domain, placing 10th to 19th with a score of 0.833.
This sector measures a countrys capability to avoid discrimination,
espouse the best interest of the child, respect the views of the
younger sector, encourage child participation, and provide the best
available budget, among others.
Providing protection for children in terms of curbing child labor,
adolescent birth rate, and ensuring birth registration were also a
strong suit of the country as it ranked 89th and scored 0.789.
It got the lowest rating in education with a 0.789 rating, ranking
108th. The indicators used for this area were statistics on primary
school participation, secondary school participation, primary and
secondary school enrollment ratio, survival rate, and net
attendance ratio.
In the life domain, the Philippines ranked 103rd and got a score of
0.769. This field gauged the country based on under age 5
mortality ratio, life expectancy at birth, and maternal mortality ratio.
Meanwhile, in the health sector, the country obtained a score of
0.749, landing at the 104th place.
Child rights and protection group Save the Children acknowledges
the gains the country has made, especially in having a robust
legal framework for the children. There, however, remains gaps in
implementing these policies.
"Many of these are not fully implemented and remain either
unfunded or under-resourced. At the end of the day, the actual
situation of children, especially those from deprived families, will
provide the evidence of whether the positive rights environment
has led to transformative changes in their and their families' lives,
the group said in a statement.
Global call
Norway topped the global list with an overall rating of 0.981,
followed by Portugal (0.960) and Iceland (0.958). Spain and
Switzerland got the 4th and 5th spots with 0.951 and 0.944 overall
scores, respectively.
The study also found that a countrys economic standing is not
directly related to the provision of a humane and rightful
environment for the youth sector.
Italy (81st), Canada (72nd), and Luxembourg (56th), for example,
are urged to improve the infrastructures they have built for
childrens rights.
in childrens rights, but fail to do so sufficiently, KidsRights said in
its release.
It added: Tunisia (10th) and Thailand (21st), on the other hand,
deserve honorable mentions in that respect Thailand, for
example, scores well on their national legislation enabling
childrens rights, the group said.
That is why aside from the Philippines and Thailand, the other
developing countries listed among the highest scorers were
Vietnam (0.844), Tajikistan (0.818), Azerbaijan (0.803), and
Bhutan (0.821).
Despite the considerably high scores, KidsRights continues to urge
all 163 countries to increase their efforts in fighting discrimination
against vulnerable and marginalized childrens groups.
Vulnerable and marginalized children, including refugee children,
migrant children, disabled children, street children and indigenous
children, are still widely discriminated against, said KidsRights.
Aside from this, the foundation still sees a wide gap between the
state and civil society in cooperating to ensure child protection.
KidsRights is especially alarmed by the increased threats posed
to the safety of childrens rights defenders, journalists and civil
society activists. In too many countries such practitioners are being
harassed, threatened, abused or jailed, the group said.
They also fear the nations failure to allow for true child
participation.
KidsRights Foundation founder and chairman Marc Dullaert noted:
Not a single one of the 163 countries analyzed in the Index
achieved the highest possible score on child participation. This
means that the views of the 2.2 billion children on this planet are
not being heard adequately regarding issues that affect them
directly.
KidsRights strongly urges all countries to increase efforts to
ensure that the views of children are properly respected, he
stressed. Rappler.com
The State of the Filipino Child under Dutertes War on Drugs
By PhilRights Staff| November 20th, 2017
By Aristotle Villaroman
November 20 is known as Universal Childrens Day . This
occasion commemorates the 1989 adoption of the Convention on
the Rights of the Child , the basic international law on Childrens
Rights, by the United Nations General Assembly. It is also about
the recognition of the achievements done in the arena of
Childrens Rights, the changes in the lives of children across the
world according to international standards of decent living for
young people.
However, this appreciation of milestones must also be met with the
recognition of the challenges in fulfilling and protecting the rights of
children. Furthermore, enumerating Childrens current issues
require a broad scanning of the general Human Rights situation of
the country. Our current situation provides the best and worst of
times for Human Rights defense in the country, including the
protection and promotion of Childrens Rights.
Our Human Rights at risk
The candidacy of then-Mayor Rodrigo Duterte as the 16th
President of the Republic of the Philippines, known for his tough
stance against criminality when he was still a mayor of the
southern city of Davao, resonated effectively among the populace
whose frustrations with the problems of the country led to a desire
for a strong kind of leadership. The election victory of President
Duterte would later lead to a brutal war not just against illegal
drugs but also against Human Rights itself.
Criminals are not humans, therefore they do not have human
rights. This is how the current administration justifies its brutal
and bloody campaign against criminality and the illegal drugs
problem. Basic Human Rights concepts and principles have been
viciously distorted and its advocates have been vilified to pave the
way for the implementation of authoritarian and draconian policies
that endanger the freedoms and dignities of every Filipino. The
constellation of human rights issues that have emerged because of
these policies can be briefly summed up as below:
The presidents exhortation to the public to kill criminals, which has
resulted in the cheapening of human life and the normalization of
violence;
The surge in the cases of killings under the so-called war on drugs,
resulting in thousands of deaths, with most of the victims merely
suspected as drug users and pushers killed during police
operations or killed by unidentified assassins;
Proclamation of Martial Law in Mindanao in the context of terrorism
in Marawi City, resulting in more than 300,000 residents internally
displaced and paving the way for the rise of violations against the
population of Mindanao and the climate of fear around the country;
The aggressive push for the restoration of the Death Penalty, in
violation of the 1987 Constitution and international human rights
commitments;
The lack of respect towards marginalized and vulnerable sectors
(women, persons with disabilities, LGBT+) through the presidents
public pronouncements (e.g., repeated jokes about rape);
Verbal and online assaults against Human Rights Defenders,
attempting to silence them by threats from the President himself
and from his supporters, or by an army of online trolls who use the
cyberspace to bully individuals and organizations speaking out
against Human Rights violations; and
Disregard for the rule of law and the prevalence of a culture of
impunity, undermining the decades of reform done to strengthen
government institutions to promote and uphold Human Rights.
Children are not spared
President Duterte himself has led the attack against children,
alleging that pro-children policies have only resulted in producing
a generation of criminals.
The weakening of Human Rights institutions has also put Filipino
children at a more vulnerable position for attacks on their basic
rights. President Duterte himself has led the attack against
children, alleging that pro-children policies have only resulted in
producing a generation of criminals.
(https://www.rappler.com/nation/165987-duterte-juvenile-justice-
generation-criminals) Among the anti-child policies of the Duterte
administration are the following:
Denial of Right to Life: According to the Childrens Legal Rights
& Development Center (CLRD), there have been 60 documented
cases of children killed in the implementation of the war on drugs,
either as collateral damage (the way authorities dismiss these
deaths) or as specific targets of the killings;
Denial of Rights to Liberty and Movement:
The latest data show a total of 26,415 children who surrendered
under Oplan Tokhang (the flagship anti-illegal drugs program of
the Duterte administration) as either drug users or
couriers/runners. The house-to-house visits by the police, with
some groups using coercion in urban poor communities, have
forced families to yield to the pressure and share information about
their children who are or have been involved in drugs. These
thousands of children who surrendered, with no concrete programs
for their rehabilitation available, are now subjected to intensive
surveillance and are under constant threat of incarceration or
worse, of being killed;
There are 407 children currently incarcerated in regular jails; 125
of them have alleged drug-related offenses. The national law
requiring separate jails for adults and minors has not been properly
implemented nationwide, ignoring the repeated calls of childrens
rights organizations that placing children among adult inmates
decreases their chances of successful rehabilitation;
The administration has been advocating for policies that
contravene important provisions and the intent of the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child, such as the lowering of the
minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) from 15 to 9 years
old, and the implementation of a nationwide curfew for minors;
Denial of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of Children:
There is a marked increase in the number of children orphaned or
without adequate adult care due to the death and/or incarceration
of one or both parents (mostly fathers) who were suspected drug
users and/or pushers. It would be difficult to put an exact number
of orphans and children without adult care, but the number could
be in the tens of thousands. These children are at risk of being
denied protection, proper family care and the right to development.
Without families, these children could end up in the streets or
become victims of trafficking.
The orphaned children, widows and surviving members of the
victims of EJK are ostracized by their own communities, who
consider them as social pariahs. This treatment creates a culture
of stigmatization and division in communities, further disempowers
the victims, and compounds the deprivation and denial of rights
(e.g., a child who stops going to school, a widowed mother who
cannot earn a livelihood).
The obsession of the government to reduce the number of drug
users has led to the implementation of mandatory drug testing in
schools and communities, exposing those who have been tested
(children and adults alike), whether actual drug users or not, to the
possibility of stigmatization by their peers, or worse, being a target
for killing; and
The anti-poor economic policies of this administration, such as the
failure to end labor contractualization, the lack of employment
programs, the regressive and anti-poor tax reform, and the
onerous bilateral loans for infrastructure programs from China, are
basically the repetition of policies that have mired the Filipinos in
vicious cycles of poverty for decades. Such repetition of disastrous
policies will further deprive poor families of the chance to improve
the quality of their lives and create a better future for their children.
These ongoing attacks on the freedoms and dignities of the
Filipino people create a general atmosphere of fear, impunity,
absence of respect for rights including Childrens Rights, and
normalization of violence. Such conditions will influence the
development of todays children, possibly creating a generation
totally ignorant of and even antagonistic towards Human Rights
values.