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On July 21-24,  2009, Kyle Baleva, a 12 year old Filipino boy currently living in The Netherlands, will join the INTERNATIONAL  FOUR-DAY MARCHES IN NIJMEGEN, popularly known as WALK OF THE WORLD.  This annual walkathon is joined by thousands of people around the world.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has committed "new forms" of human rights violations against children by labeling them "child soldiers," a report by a child welfare group said Friday.

 

CRC Executive Director Ma. Esmeralda Macaspac said the Philippine government uses the broad definition of ‘child soldiers’ in the Paris Principles to evade prosecution for violating children’s rights. Worse, she said, “Communities and people’s organizations branded as guerilla fronts by a paranoid regime become vulnerable to attacks and children are bound to be branded as ‘children associated with armed groups’ by virtue of being residents of these communities or children of members of such organizations.” Read more »

I did some work with an NGO called the Children’s Rehabilitation Center (CRC) on my last visit to the Philippines in Oct 2007 to January 2008.  The CRC works with children who are victims of state violence.  This set of ten images will try to tell just a small part of their current story. As some of you may know, the Philippines is in pretty rough shape these days.  It’s current government is said by human rights groups in country and internationally to be guilty of severe abuses.  It was until last year the 2nd most dangerous place in the world to be a journalist (after Iraq). Read more »

The Children’s Rehabilitation Center is gravely concerned at the renewed attack of the Armed Forces of the Philippines against the Moro people in the guise of war against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the provinces covering the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. With the scuttled peace talks following the non-signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain by the government panel, the military attack once again escalated to an alarming proportions affecting hundreds of thousands of people. Read more »

The AFP is again using their same old lines of “collateral damage” and tagging children as “child soldier”, as alibi to escape from accountabilities of violating children’s rights.                    Read more »

Children’s Rehabilitation Center, a child rights organization here in Southern Mindanao strongly condemned the random bombings made by the Armed Forces of the Philippines particularly the Philippine Airforce last September 8, 2008 in Datu Piang, Maguindanao which killed 6 civillians including 4 innocent children who were evacuating their community on board a motorboat. Read more »

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines – Philippine human rights investigators on Tuesday began a probe of the air strike which killed seven civilians in the restive southern region of Mindanao.

Mosib Tan, municipal administrator of Datu Piang town, said members of the Commission on Human Rights are currently investigating the deaths of a farming couple and their five children.

The Children’s Rehabilitation Center (CRC), a non-government organization helping children in armed conflict cope with trauma, today deplored the military’s aerial attack on civilians in Datu Piang, Maguindanao. As a result, at least 4 children and a pregnant woman were killed in the attack. “The women and children were already fleeing from the military operations in their barangay when they were hit. Would their lives be considered as mere collateral damage?” asked Ma. Esmeralda Macaspac, Executive Director of the CRC. Read more »