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A United Nations report has urged better protection of children
caught in conflicts between the government and rebels in the
Philippines. The country prohibits recruitment of children for
combat in war zones.
The report, released by UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki Moon last week, said 19 children were killed in conflicts between
July 2005 and November 2007 in the Philippines, while 42 were
maimed.
More than half of these cases was allegedly
perpetrated by government security forces, a fifth was attributed to
the Abu Sayyaf, and the rest to communist rebels of the New
People’s Army (NPA). The Abu Sayyaf is an al-Qaeda-linked
extremist group that claims to be battling for an independent
Islamic homeland in the Philippines’ southern Mindanao region.
The UN report said there is evidence that
government paramilitary forces and rebel groups, including the
communist insurgents and those from the Moro Islamic Liberation
Front (MILF), recruited children during the same period. The
liberation front is another Muslim separatist group.
“A Unicef-commissioned study on children and
women in MILF and NPA areas found that children seek to associate
themselves with these armed groups because of poverty, lack of
access to basic social services, and the influence of their
families, peers, and community members,” the report added.
It said government security forces accused some
of the child recruits of being associated with rebel groups.
“A controversial case was that of a 9-year-old
girl who was killed when government soldiers clashed with NPA
guerrillas near her home in Compostela Valley [region] in
southeastern Mindanao. Her body was photographed with a rifle and
presented by the military to the media as that of an NPA child
combatant. The Army later retracted its statement and admitted that
the girl was a non-combatant,” the UN report said.
Mindanao has been racked by communist and Muslim
rebellions since the 1970s.
The report urged the government of the
Philippines to examine, in cooperation with the UN country team and
other relevant actors, the need to include specific provisions for
the protection of children in all peace or ceasefire negotiations.
It also asked Manila to facilitate efforts by
the UN country team to enter into dialogue with the New People’s
Army, MILF, and Abu Sayyaf armed groups in order to prepare and
implement action plans to halt the recruitment and use of children
and prevent and respond to other violations against children.
The New People’s Army is supposedly
5,700-strong and has been engaging government forces in the
countryside for nearly 40 years. The MILF controls part of the
southern region of Mindanao, while the Abu Sayyaf is active in Sulu
province in southwest Mindanao.
-- Xinhua
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