The Philippines’ main Muslim separatist group has agreed to stop recruiting child soldiers and return those in its ranks to civilian life, a United Nations official said Friday.

Radhika Coomaraswamy, special representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, revealed that during her talks with MILF leader Mohagher Iqbal, the MILF has committed to enter an immediate action plan with the UN to stop the recruitment and use of children as soldiers by totally separating the young ones from their ranks and helping them return to civilian life.

“The MILF gave its word that they will direct their commanders in the field immediately,” Coomaraswamy said in a press conference held at the Discovery Suites Hotel in Ortigas.

Officials of the 12,000-strong MILF, which has been fighting for a Muslim homeland in Southern Mindanao since 1978, met with Coomraswarmy as part of her mission to discuss ways to stop recruitment of children by armed groups in this country.

Coomaraswamy visited the country on the request of the UN Security Council to discuss ways and means of securing the release of children being recruited by the MILF, New People’s Army and the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group. She met with government officials, such as Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Hermogenes Esperon, among others.

A United Nations Children’s Fund-commissioned study on children and women released on April showed that the MILF has been recruiting children in their ranks since the Philippine government declared an all-out war against the rebels in 2000 because of poverty, lack of access to basic social services, influence of their families, peers and community members. The MILF assuming custodial role for orphans whose parents are killed in the war is also a factor.

MILF practice

Young Muslim children undergo training by the MILF when they reach the age of puberty—13 to 14 years old for boys and 11 to 12 for girls. Aside from combat operations, these children are also “tasked to carry out patrols, perform sentry duty, prepare food and provide medical assistance.”

During her visit, the Philippine government issued an order strictly prohibiting the recruitment of anyone below the age of 18 into pro-government paramilitary units, Coomaraswarmy said Friday, the last day of her tour.

The UN official added that she was considering “possible dialogue,” with the 5,000-strong communist New People’s Army (NPA), which has been waging a Maoist rebellion since 1969.

The MILF and the NPA have both been accused of recruiting children into their ranks. Previously, both groups insisted the children joined willingly and served as spies, couriers or aides.

Asked on how confident they are that the MILF would fulfill such promise, Coomaraswamy said she believes that the fact that the MILF wants to be legitimized is a good sign.

“The MILF does not view their group as rebels, but as leaders of their province. As such, they would want to be removed from the terrorist list that’s for sure,” Coomaraswamy pointed out. “We maintain a good faith in them.”

She added that the UN sanctions stated in the UN Security Council 1612 that include freezing of assets, travel bans and embargoing of arms are a clear warning.

Share of the blame

But the identified rebel groups don’t have to take all the blame.

The UN also scored the Philippine government for allowing children to be involved in the paramilitary Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Units and Community Volunteer Organizations operating in conflict areas.

“We told them that they should also investigate their ranks for violations against children,” she said. “They immediately agreed to immediately issue a directive that will compel all local units to strictly adhere to the existing national legislation that no one under 18 shall be tapped for such service.”

The UN official also recognized that while the Philippines has a strong framework of laws on children and armed conflict, its implementation is yet to be strengthened.

She complimented the government in the upcoming amendment of Republic Act 7610, which would exclude the prosecution of children arrested for reasons related to armed conflict.

“RA 7610 should be amended so that children who are arrested for reasons related to armed conflict will be spared from punishment,” she said. “They [children] are victims, not perpetrators.”

Zones of peace

Republic Act 7610 cites children as zones of peace, and therefore, should not be recruited to become members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, its civilian units or any other armed groups nor be allowed to be used as guides, while Republic Act 8371 prohibits the recruitment of children of indigenous cultural communities into the armed forces under any circumstances.

Republic Act 9208 provides sanctions against child engagement in armed conflict here and abroad, while Republic Act 9231 seeks the elimination of child labor that includes commissioning children to armed groups.

Fighting slammed

Coomaraswarmy deplored the recent surge in fighting between government forces and MILF guerrillas in southern Philippines which has forced thousands of children to flee to overcrowded evacuation centers.

She also insisted for the government to investigate those within the Philippine security forces who are allegedly responsible for violations against these children.

“Children are affected in multiple ways by the conflict in the Philippines. However, they should remain zones of peace and all the parties to the conflict, civil society, religious leaders and the government must consider their protection as a priority,” she said.

The MILF action comes after the United States in October made it a federal crime for rebel groups in the Philippines and 16 other countries to recruit or to use soldiers under the age of 15.

–AFP And Llanesca T. Panti

A ranking United Nations official said yesterday the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has committed to stop its practice of recruiting and using children in combat operations.

A statement from the Office of the Presidential Adviser for the Peace Process quoted visiting UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy as saying that the MILF “will enter into an action plan with UNICEF to stop the recruitment and use of children in combat.”

Coomaraswamy made the announcement during her talk with Presidential Adviser on Peace Process Secretary Hermogenes Esperon Jr. at the latter’s office in Pasig City.

She had just returned from a trip to Central Mindanao where she observed first-hand the various measures undertaken by the Philippine government in the protection of children in armed conflict areas, the statement said.

“The primacy purpose of this visit, requested by the (UN) Security Council, was to discuss ways and means of securing the release of children being recruited by the MILF and the New People’s Army (NPA),” she added.

The UN official welcomed the decision of the MILF to comply with the Security Council’s recommendations.

She said the Secretary-General for the use and recruitment of children lists these armed groups.

The MILF and the NPA have both been accused of recruiting children into their ranks. Previously, both groups insisted the children joined willingly and served as spies, couriers or aides.

During her meeting with Esperon and other government and military officials, Coomaraswamy raised concerns on the alleged involvement of children in the paramilitary Citizens Armed Force Geographical Unit and Community Volunteers Organizations operating in some conflict areas.

She said the government has assured her to immediately issue a directive for all local units to strictly adhere to existing national legislation that no one under 18 years old shall be recruited as child soldiers.

She cited the importance to improve the child protection provisions in the ongoing peace progress with various rebel groups.

She welcomed the proposed amendment to Republic Act 7610 that would exclude from prosecution children who are arrested for reasons related to armed conflict, considering them as victims instead of perpetrators.

Esperon assured Coomaraswamy that the government would exert all efforts to protect children involved in armed conflict areas in the country.

Coomaraswarmy deplored the recent surge in fighting between government forces and MILF guerrillas in Mindanao, which has forced thousands of children to flee to overcrowded evacuation centers.

The MILF action comes after the United States in October made it a federal crime for rebel groups in the Philippines and 16 other countries to recruit or to use soldiers under the age of 15.

She said that talks with the MILF will start by next year but admitted that they have yet to find ways to engage the NPA and Abu Sayaff Group for a similar task of freeing the children among their ranks.

Coomaraswamy called on the Arroyo government to undertake targeted interventions with the assistance of UN agencies, particularly the UNICEF, on the management of camps that have children to ensure water and sanitation, health, food security, psycho-social support and protection of civilians.

Meantime, a church-based group has documented incidents of children who are victims of human rights violations and exploited women who have been tortured in detention centers in the country.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ official news service provider CBCPNews said that the People’s Recovery, Empowerment Development Assistance Foundation (PREDA) aims to inform the public on the true plight of children and women in prison.

– Katherine Adraneda, Evelyn Macairan, Non Alquitran, Paolo Romero

THE United Nations and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front will start next year their talks on an action plan to stop the recruitment of children as soldiers.

Radhika Coomaraswamy, special representative of the Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, revealed this yesterday during a press conference in Ortigas, Pasig City.

“The primary purpose of this five-day visit, requested by the Security Council, was to discuss ways and means of securing the release of children being recruited by the MILF and New People’s Army,” Coomaraswamy said.

She said these armed groups MILF, NPA and the Abu Sayaff Group are listed by the Secretary General as recruiting and using children.

However, the UN representative welcomed the decision of the MILF to comply with the Security Council recommendations to free up the children among their ranks.

“Possible dialogue with NPA is under consideration in the context of ongoing peace process,” she stressed.

In her five day visit, Coomaraswamy met with the Philippine government and raised concerns regar-ding alleged involvement of children in the parami-litary Citizens Armed Force Geographical Units and Community Volunteer Organizations operating in some conflict areas.

The government, through the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, agreed to immediately issue a directive that all local units must strictly adhere to existing national legislation that no one under 18 shall be recruited or used.

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary General also urged the government to take all the necessary measures to investigate and take firm action against those within the Philippines Security Forces allegedly responsible for grave violations against children.

Coomaraswamy said the talks with the MILF will start by next year but admitted that they have yet to find ways to engage the NPA and ASG for a similar task of freeing the children among their ranks.

But she expressed hope that in the coming days or months, they can find a way to talk with the two groups so they can engage them.

The UN representative welcomed the upcoming amendment of RA 7610, as it would exclude from prosecution children who are arrested for reasons rela-ted to armed conflict.

Lenylyn de Guzman, alias Mama Leny, of 274 San Sebastian St. Tondo, Manila, was charged with violation of Section 4 (a) in relation to Section 6 (a) and Section 10 (c) of RA 9208, otherwise known as the Anti-Trafficking in Person Act of 2003. Assistant City Prosecutor Minerva de Guzman filed the information in court.

The prosecutor recommended no bail for the accused. The accused is currently in jail.

The charges stemmed from a complaint filed by four female teenagers who claimed they had been part of “Leny’s Angels”, a term adopted by the accused to suggest to prospective customers that the girls she sells for sex are of minor age. The girls ages range between 15 and 17.

The girls said they were paid by the accused from P1,000 to P1,500 for every customer they have sex with.

Investigation showed that the accused and her illegal business operations had been the subject of surveillance by the Western Metro Manila Criminal Investigation and Detection Team of the Manila Police District following reports regarding the rampant prostitution in Tondo, Manila.

In the evening of Nov. 12, members of the WMMCIDT and a representative of the Department of Social Welfare and Development conducted an entrapment operation against the accused’s prostitution business by sending out a confidential informant to pose as a customer seeking the company of a minor.

The informant had been able to negotiate with the accused, who offered one of her girls for P1,500.

It was alleged that as her usual practice, the accused accompanied the “customer” and her girl to the Asukuma Hotel on N. Zamora St., corner Moriones St., Tondo, Manila where she demanded from the informant a partial payment of P500 before leaving the building.

When the entrapment team arrived at the hotel, they immediately barged in while the minor was allegedly in the act of giving sexual favors to the informant.

Lawmen also arrested the accused near the hotel and recovered from her possession the marked P500 bill used by the informant as advance payment for sex.

Two bar operators in Daraga, Albay were sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment for trafficking minors for sexual exploitation. One is the owner and the other is the cashier. They were also made to pay P1 million
each in fine.

This is the second conviction this year under the Republic Act 9208 or the Anti-trafficking in Persons Act of 2003. It is the 12th conviction since the law was passed in 2003.

The law provides for the privacy of both the trafficked person and the accused. Although the two bar operators have been convicted, they still have the option to file a motion for reconsideration.

The case involved the trafficking of four girls—ranging from 14 to 16 years old—from their homes in Paranaque and Taguig to work as guest relation officers in a bar in Daraga. They were rescued in February 2007 by the National Bureau of Investigation’s (NBI) Anti-human trafficking division, which acted on the tip of one of the victims who was able to escape and return to Manila.

The NBI operatives posed as customers. As soon as they confirmed employment of the minors in the bar, they immediately arrested the two bar operators and rescued the victims.

“Let this be a warning against human traffickers that their glory days are over and that they must immediately stop. Whether here or abroad, the Inter-agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) will not leave any stone unturned in its efforts to fight the crime of human trafficking,” acting IACAT chairman Ricardo Blancaflor said in a statement.

“This is a great example of how collaboration among the Department of Justice (DOJ), law enforcement and the non-government organization (NGO) sector can bring great results in the fight against trafficking,” added
Carmela Andal Castro, director of local office of the International Justice Mission (IJM), a U.S.-based organization that has been helping since 2001 in efforts combating the trafficking of women and children in the Philippines.

Paranaque public prosecutor Lamberto Fabros got help from IJM’s lawyer Liwliwa Agbayani, who provided free counsel to the victims. Social workers also provided assistance and support to the children.

The massive dislocation of families due to the raging armed conflict in Mindanao has spurred the trafficking of children, Rep. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza of Cotabato warned Sunday.

“A growing number of young girls and boys whose families have been displaced by constant armed strife have become extremely vulnerable to trafficking by illegal job recruiters and all sorts of predators,” Taliño-Mendoza said.

Many of the underage victims risk mistreatment and exploitation as sweatshop laborers, street slaves and child prostitutes under the employ of gangsters, or illegal workers abroad.

“Sadly, the condition in many parts of Mindanao that are being tormented by armed clashes has become highly conducive for child traffickers,” Taliño-Mendoza said.

She appealed to the Department of Social Welfare and Development as well as operators of passenger buses, inter-island vessels and airlines to exercise greater vigilance and take extra precautions against child traffickers.

“One practical way to discourage trafficking is for domestic passenger carriers to check the identity and age of every traveling minor and to ascertain whether the child is accompanied by a verified family member or relative, or by a person who is not related to the minor,” Taliño-Mendoza said.

She said unrelated adults chaperoning traveling youngsters should be checked and their identities should be recorded and verified.

A leading nongovernment group closely monitoring human trafficking in the country has corroborated Taliño-Mendoza’s apprehension.

Human traffickers are definitely preying on children dislocated by rebel attacks and the operations of government troops running after them in Mindanao, according to the Visayan Forum Foundation Inc.
The foundation said syndicates have been prowling evacuation camps for potential young laborers for overseas deployment.

It added that 34 minors have already been rescued by social workers from traffickers that sneaked them out of conflict zones in Mindanao and tried to deploy them to the Middle East on spurious travel papers.
Some of the evacuees are in 123 evacuation centers while others have sought refuge elsewhere, mostly in the homes of relatives and friends in other nearby towns.

Besides Cotabato, the three other provinces bearing the brunt of the armed conflict are Lanao del Norte, Maguindanao and Shariff Kabunsuan.

DHAKA: A group of Bangladeshi children who worked as camel jockeys in the United Arab Emirates will get more than $50,000 in compensation from the Gulf state, an official said Thursday.

The 29 children were among 200 repatriated three years ago when the UAE signed an agreement with the UN children’s fund Unicef to outlaw the practice of children riding in camel races.

The UAE banned child jockeys in 1993 although abuses remained widespread until the 2005 agreement.

Magistrate Abul Bashar Mohammad Amiruddin told Agence France-Presse the children were from the Gazipur district, near the capital Dhaka, and a UAE representative had visited this week to announce the compensation package.

“The UAE official said the 29 children, who were aged between five and 18 when they came back to Bangladesh, will get between $1,200 and $3,000 each and the total will be $52,700,” Amiruddin said.

Some of the children were trafficked from Bangladesh, others were sent there to earn money for their families back home and others were used as underage jockeys to earn money for families living in the UAE.

Poverty and lack of jobs in Bangladesh, where 40 percent of the population lives on less than a dollar a day, drives millions abroad each year to send money back to their families.

Poor parents are vulnerable to traffickers who prey on their desperation by making false promises of good jobs abroad for their children.

– AFP

“Break the chain of abuse. Pass the Anti-Child Pornography Bill,” urged Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Luz Ilagan after a study conducted by Talikala Foundation, a group helping prostituted women in Davao, revealed that a large number of prostituted women were once victims of child pornography. “The increase in the number of cases of child pornography in the Philippines and the number of Filipino children involved in the sex trade are alarming. If we do not stop these now, what will happen to our children?” Ilagan asked.

According to the United Nations, the Philippines ranks fourth among countries with the most number of prostituted children, reaching up to 75,000 at present. A study by the Psychological Trauma Program of the University of the Philippines notes that prostitution may now be the country’s fourth largest source of the gross national product.

“The Philippines is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is a shame that we do not have a law protecting the basic rights of our children and penalizing those who violate them, most especially those involved in child pornography, one of the worst forms of child labor,” Ilagan said. In the Sept. 22 meeting of the House of Representatives members, Anti-Child Pornography Alliance and Philippine Legislators’ Action Committee for Children, Ilagan showed support for the Anti Child Pornography Bill. “I urge my colleagues in the Lower House, as well as in the Senate, to immediately address child sex trade in the Philippines by passing into law the Anti-Child Pornography Bill.”

Charlie V. Manalo

Malacañang aims to bring before the United Nations the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s (MILF) recruitment of children as fighters.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the government has photographs to show that the MILF is using children in combat.

The photographs were seized by troops from captured MILF camps, he added.

Ermita said the issue of combatant children is based on international treaties on the protection of children in armed conflict.

Data against the MILF and New People’s Army (NPA) are being gathered for presentation before the UN, he added.

Ermita said by raising the issue of combatant children at the UN, members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) would be informed of the MILF’s illegal action.

The OIC could then send emissaries to compel the MILF to stop using children in combat, he added.

Soldiers have confirmed that they have encountered children fighting for the MILF and NPA.

Troops would have to defend themselves when facing a combatant, regardless of his or her age, he added.

However, unarmed children found in a combat zone are turned over to the Department of Social Welfare and Development, Ermita said. – Marvin Sy

Uzbekistan has banned child labour, ending the annual forced mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of school children to pick the cotton harvest.

The Uzbek Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyayev signed a decree on Friday 12 September to implement two ratified international conventions against child labour. The ban follows pressure from human rights activists, socially conscious shareholders and US trade associations. In August neighbouring Turkmenistan also banned the use of child labour to pick cotton.

Uzbekistan, the world’s third largest cotton exporter, produces 1.1m tonnes of cotton each year. The Central Asian country reportedly relies on the forced labour of up to 450,000 children, many aged between 10 and 15, to collect the annual cotton harvest.

Each September, school children are forced to miss classes for up to two and a half months to pick cotton. The children spend up to 11 hours a day working in the fields and earn less than two US dollars.

The ban pays testament to the combined impact of NGOs and businesses to pressurise governments to tackle slavery and the ability of companies to eradicate slavery from their supply chain.

On August 15, four US trade associations delivered a letter to the Uzbekistan ambassador in Washington, calling on an immediate end to forced child labour.

On the same day similar appeals were made by a coalition of NGOs and asset management companies to President Islam A. Karimov of Uzbekistan, as well as Juan Somavia, head of the International Labour Organization and US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

Major retailers and clothing companies, including Tesco, Marks & Spencer, C&A and Gap, already exclude Uzbek cotton from their products over concerns of forced child labour.

The Uzbekistan government had never previously admitted to the use of child labour and in the past has argued that child workers volunteer to help with the harvest.

For further information:

http://www.laborrights.org/stop-child-labor/cotton-campaign/1662

http://uznews.net/news_single.php?lng=en&sub=top&cid=2&nid=7135

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/7068096.stm