Anna Malindog-Uy
One of the most crucial and pressing issues related to children in the Philippines is the issue of children in armed conflict. Children in situations of armed conflict (CSAC), including Children Involvement in Armed Conflict (CIAC), are among the most vulnerable groups of children, often falling victim or becoming targets for harm and violence. Children involved in armed conflict are still very much prevalent in the Philippines especially in war-prone and war-torn areas of SOCCSKSARGEN and Mindanao. SOCCSKSARGEN is an administrative region of the Philippines located in South-Central Mindanao. It stands for the region’s four provinces and two cities, namely, South Cotabato, Cotabato City, Cotabato Province, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani, and General Santos City. Likewise, children’s involvement and their precarious situation in armed conflict are also prevailing in certain areas of Luzon and the Visayas where intensified counter-insurgency operations of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) against the New Peoples’ Army (NPA) of the Community Party of the Philippines (CPP) are on-going. Just to note, the CPP is the longest-running insurgent group in the world thus far. It has waged a “protracted-war” or “armed struggle” for more than 50 years since its founding in 1969. However, its decriers typify its “protracted-war” as lawlessness and violence. Its military arm is the New People’s Army (NPA), and its political arm is the National Democratic Front (NDF). The CPP-NDF-NPA since the beginning has been keen on overthrowing the government of the Philippines but had never politically or militarily for that matter controlled any province or even a single city in its 51 years of existence. Their military bases are in the forests and mountains across the country. Children in armed conflict situations experience various forms of violations and abuse, which include: (a) becoming internally displaced persons in their own country; (b) being killed and maimed in crossfires, which include targeted shootings, crossfire, airstrikes, shelling, indiscriminate attacks, summary executions, unexploded ordnance, and/or mistreatment during detention; (c) the use of schools especially those located in interior areas as military camps which result in harassment of teachers and students (d) abduction; (e) rape and other gender-based violence; (f) the denial of humanitarian services in remote areas controlled by non-state armed groups; and (g) the precarious and continuous recruitment as soldiers/combatants by various insurgent and terrorist groups in the country.
Backdrop
Article 38/3 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), states parties are prohibited from recruiting any person who has not attained the age of 15 years into the armed forces. Likewise, even in recruiting among those persons who have attained the age of 15 years but who have not attained the age of 18 years, states and non-state armed groups shall endeavour to give priority to those who are oldest. The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict sets 18 as the minimum age for direct participation in hostilities, for recruitment into armed groups, and compulsory recruitment by governments. Nevertheless, the recruitment of children as combatants by non-state armed groups in the Philippines continues despite the prohibitions set by the UNCRC and its Optional Protocols. This has been evidenced by the recent reports and statements of UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Virginia Gamba, and UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, Maria Grazia Giammarinaro during the 44th UN Human Rights Council Session, who both expressed and drew attention to the situation of children in the Philippines being recruited for armed combat. UN Special Representative Gamba outlined the challenges in ending and preventing grave violations against children including their recruitment and use; killing and maiming; abduction; rape and sexual violence, while UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, Giammarinaro, highlighted how conflict and post-conflict settings heighten the vulnerability of children to being trafficked to serve as soldiers, servants, or sexual slaves. On 6 July 2020, the Philippine Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN), Ambassador Evan P Garcia, conveyed the Philippines’ full support to the UN’s experts work and urged them to continue paying close attention to the “modus operandi” through which the recruitment of child soldiers is carried out in different settings in the Philippines.
Fonte: https://theaseanpost.com/article/will-child-soldier-recruitment-ever-end
