The ASG also recruited teenagers to fight and participate in its activities. There were reports that a significant number of ASG members staffing the groups’ camps were teenagers. The AFP stated that some Islamic schools in Mindanao served as fronts to indoctrinate children and that the ASG used children as couriers and spies.
According to UNICEF and ILO studies, approximately 2.4 million children were exposed to hazardous working environments, such as quarries, mines, and docksides (see section 6.d.). Since 1995, only four persons have been convicted of violating the child labor law.
The government estimated that there were at least 22,000 street children nationwide, but UNICEF estimated that there were approximately 250,000 street children. Welfare officials believed that the number increased as a result of widespread unemployment in rural areas. Many street children appeared to be abandoned and engaged in scavenging or begging.
A variety of national executive orders and laws provide for the welfare and protection of children. Police stations have child and youth relations officers to ensure that child suspects are treated appropriately. However, procedural safeguards were often ignored in practice. The BJMP stated that approximately 1,400 minors were held on “preventative detention” while their trials were ongoing, and only 72 of them actually were convicted and serving their sentences. Many child suspects were detained for extended periods without access to social workers and lawyers, and were not segregated from adult criminals. NGOs believed that children held in integrated conditions with adults were highly vulnerable to sexual abuse, recruitment into gangs, forced labor, torture, and other ill treatment. There were also reports that many children detained in jails appeared to have been arrested without warrants.
In April Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez ordered a nationwide review of cases of juvenile offenders. During the year government agencies and NGOs worked to segregate juvenile offenders, secure the release of minors wrongfully imprisoned, and transfer others to rehabilitation centers. DSWD ran 11 regional youth rehabilitation centers for juvenile offenders. There were three detention centers for children in Manila. On May 16, President Arroyo signed the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, which, among other reforms, changes the age of criminal responsibility from nine to 15 years of age. Under the new law children caught committing crimes are to be turned over to juvenile justice and welfare councils to be placed in diversion programs supervised by local social welfare officers. The law also prohibits the detention of minors in jails while undergoing trial and exempts convicted minors from the death penalty (see section 1.d.).
A number of NGOs actively promoted children’s rights.
Trafficking in Persons
Trafficking in persons is prohibited under a comprehensive 2003 antitrafficking law, which defines several activities related to trafficking in persons as illegal and imposes stiff penalties–up to life imprisonment–for convicted offenders. Nonetheless, trafficking remained a problem in the country. The country was a source, transit, and destination country for internationally trafficked persons for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor. Internal trafficking remained a serious problem. NGOs and government agencies estimated that from 300,000 to 400,000 women and from 60,000 to 100,000 children were trafficked annually. The most serious problem appeared to be the trafficking of women across international borders for purposes of sexual exploitation. Organized criminal gangs typically trafficked persons from China through the country to other destinations, although occasionally the country was the final destination. Although the government pursued trafficking-related cases under the antitrafficking law as well as other related laws, its efforts were hampered by slow processing times in the courts, resource constraints within law enforcement agencies, and corruption. In 2005 the DOJ assigned an additional 10 prosecutors to handle the preliminary investigation and prosecution of trafficking cases at the national level, bringing the total to 14, in addition to other prosecutors in the regional trial courts. The principal investigative agencies were the National Bureau of Intelligence, the Bureau of Immigration, and the PNP’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group. The government cooperated with international investigations of trafficking.
Both adults and children were trafficked domestically from poor, rural, areas in the southern and central parts of the country to major urban centers, especially Metro Manila and Cebu, but also increasingly to cities in Mindanao. A significant percentage of the victims of internal trafficking were from Mindanao and were fleeing the poverty and violence in their home areas. Approximately 75 percent of the trafficking victims provided with temporary shelter and counseling by the NGO Visayan Forum Foundation were from Mindanao. The Visayan region was also a source of trafficking victims. Women and girls were far more at risk of becoming victims of trafficking than men and boys.
The Virlanie Foundation, a local child protection NGO, estimated that there were at least 20,000 child prostitutes in the country, most in the Metro Manila area. Other NGOs estimated that as many as 100,000 children were involved in the commercial sex industry. Most of these children were girls, and nearly all had dropped out of school. These children came from very poor families with unemployed or irregularly employed parents.
