CPU to help 10,000 victims of child abuse

Child Protection Unit (CPU) Philippines will help 10,000 maltreated children annually as child abuse cases reached an alarming rate of 9,787 last year.

The figure was a thousand more than reported in 2008, data from the Philippine National Police’s National Women’s and Children’s Protection Desk show.

“These were only reported cases. CPU wants to be at the forefront in assisting child victims and their families get medical, psychosocial, and legal protection,” said Dr. Stella Guerroro-Manalo, CPU associate executive director.

CPU will establish one national and six regional training and treatment centers, which will be augmented by 25 child protection units in key regions and 81 satellite offices nationwide in the next five years.

The network will enable abused children anywhere in the country to access its services.

Cases of abuse in urban poor areas include child rape, child prostitution and child labor while incest is more prevalent in rural communities.

A United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) report indicates that there are at least 75,000 child sex workers in the Philippines due to poverty.

The country ranks fourth on the list of countries having a large number of prostituted children.

A national survey on children made in 2001 by Functional Literacy Education and Mass Media Survey, also revealed that there are 4 million children forced to do manual labor because of poverty. Of this, 60 percent or 2.4 million were exposed to hazardous work environments.

Child abuse is also rampant in war torn regions such as Mindanao and some parts of Luzon.

In a report, the Council for Welfare of Children showed children constituted around 13 to 18 percent of armed rebel combatants. In the last several years, government troop on numerous occasions captured or killed rebel fighters who turned out to be minors.

Manalo said there is a need to augment government’s efforts in protecting children’s rights since developing countries, such as the Philippines, find it hard to singlehandedly enforces child protection laws and provides children’s basic necessities when governments are already struggling with scarce resources. –Daily Tribune