Child Rights Advocates Bewail Distortion of Child Protection Principles for Counter-Insurgency

 Child Rights Advocates Bewail Distortion of Child Protection Principles for Counter-Insurgency

Children have been suffering the brunt of military operations along with their elders, but whereas before they were considered as “collateral damages,” since 2007, most children being encountered by the military in operations are being labeled as “child combatants.”
By MARYA SALAMAT

Bulatlat.com
MANILA — When the Philippine military fired at and killed unarmed civilians including a renowned botanist last week in Kananga, Leyte, they issued afterward what critics say has become the army’s staple excuse for such carnage: The victims are members of New Peoples’ Army (NPA).

This tragedy follows a trend of ‘shoot/attack first, justify later. The victims of rights violations would be labeled as NPA guerrillas anyway. Worse, according to the Children’s Rehabilitation Center (CRC), this practice is being used against a growing list of children victims of military operations.

More children, some as young as three years old, are being labeled as NPA guerrillas after being apprehended, questioned, detained or fired at.

Less Collateral Damages As More Victims of AFP Become “NPAs” 

Children have been suffering the brunt of military operations along with their elders, but whereas before they were considered as “collateral damages,” since 2007, most children being encountered by the military in sites of their operations are being labeled as “child combatants.” According to various documentation reports of the CRC and of another child-rights advocate group Salinlahi, this practice did not cease after former President Arroyo vacated Malacañang.

Early this year, Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan asked the military to “keep their hands off the children.” Reports gathered by CRC and Salinlahi from highly militarized regions and provinces reveal disturbing cases of torture of children, and use of children as shields and guides in hunting down NPAs. Bulatlat also received reports from the Batangas chapter of Karapatan about the forcible recruitment of minors to the CAFGU (Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit).

According to anecdotes separately shared by human rights defenders from different areas to CRC, the military also conducts house-to-house and school-to-school visits to question the people and the students about NPAs. In high schools and colleges, the military is reportedly recruiting students to its intelligence network to inform the military about members and leaders of progressive youth groups such as the LFS, for instance. The soldiers reportedly told students that organizations like these are “fronts” of the NPAs and their activities should be reported to the military.

AFP Accused of Distorting Agreements for Child Protection
 
An international optional protocol for protecting children involved in armed conflict, crafted in 2007 and dubbed as the Paris Principle, has not helped but instead seemed to have been used to make Filipino children more vulnerable to human rights violations, the CRC complained in Filipino in an interview. The Paris Principle, they said, “is not as suited to protecting children in Philippine conditions as the other conditions on which the UNICEF had based the Paris Principle.”

Worse, the CRC accuses the Philippine military of distorting the intent of the international children’s protection principle to suit its counter-insurgency operations and violate human and children’s rights in the process.....MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2010/11/20/child-rights-advocates-bewail-distortion-of-child-protection-principles-for-counter-insurgency/