PHILIPPINES: In the Philippines, children as young as nine wait for weeks, month or even years to go on trial

Record ID: 174129

  • Title: PHILIPPINES: In the Philippines, children as young as nine wait for weeks, month or even years to go on trial
  • Date: 11th October 2005
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF CHILDREN SINGING PAYER SONG
  • Embargoed: 26th October 2005 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Philippines
  • Country: Philippines
  • Reuters ID: LVA8QQU2ZV7XOS3LIYCXQC6WJM7Y
  • Story Text: At age 14, "Christian" was taken to a city jail in the Philippines on charges of selling and using a powerful methamphetamine known as "shabu".
    Nearly three years later, the boy whose name has been changed to protect his identity, is still in a cell, smaller than a boxing ring, with 28 other youths awaiting a verdict in court.
    But Christian and his young cell-mates are lucky. Caloocan City Jail, on the northern outskirts of Manila, separates minors from adults. This does not always happen in the Philippines.
    Largely because the government cannot afford other options, many of the thousands of juveniles detained each year must fend for themselves in overcrowded jails among grown men charged with murder, rape and other violent crimes.
    For many, their families do not have the money that can help speed up a notoriously slow and overloaded justice system.
    "All the children who were incarcerated here of course they are upset. But then, in the first place, it should not be their place to be here. They should not be here," said Alejandro Almacen, the warden of Caloocan City Jail.
    Children as young as 9 can be jailed in the Philippines. In Indonesia, criminal liability starts even lower at age 8, while it is 14 in Japan.
    "The most difficult part for me is losing hope, when you have no courage and then getting news of what is happening to your family...that they are having a hard time because their family are not complete," said Christian, protesting his innocence.
    After sporadic hearings, he is no closer to knowing his fate on the drug charges. The more serious of the two, selling shabu, has a mandatory sentence of life in prison or the death penalty.
    With a third of the 86 million people in the Philippines living on a dollar a day and families commonly having six, seven or eight children, studies by various groups show that poverty, desperation and neglect play large roles in youth crime.
    Juvenile Justice Network-Philippines, which works with young offenders, estimates there were more than 4,000 children in jails and detention centres in September.
    The group says about 240 juveniles are serving sentences in adult penitentiaries, including 18 on death row who cannot prove they are minors because they have no birth certificates.
    By detaining children with adults and sentencing them to capital punishment, the Philippines is breaking international treaties it has signed and its own laws.
    "In many cases a child is charged with an offence where the penalty is only ten days imprisonment or a one dollar fine. And that child may eventually be released after the process has gone through, perhaps after a period of twelve months, so that's one year taken away from the life of a child for something so small," said UNICEF lawyer Alberto Muyot.
    Responsibility for young offenders rests with local authorities, but the justice department has started to address the issue by working with several other agencies to determine the exact number of jailed minors and to share resources.
    Proposals for a stand-alone system for young offenders, including punishment options such as community service, have been in Congress since the 1990s.
    Senators in the upper house have resumed deliberation on the Comprehensive Juvenile Justice System bill.
    The bill would raise criminal liability to age 12, provide separate detention centres for children, establish diversion programmes at the community level and create the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
    But it is a long way from being passed, with anti-terrorism legislation, hundreds of other bills and a variety of inquiries also demanding the attention of Congress.
    Even with the juvenile justice law, the debt-laden government would have to find funding for the programme and facilities.
    In Caloocan, the minors have too few simple plywood beds to go round. But they do have a solid roof, regular meals, a television, portable stereo and basic lessons in mathematics, science and English given once a week by a local teacher.
    But it does little to make the long wait until the trial, shorter.
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