The Situation of Filipino Children and Young People

Almost half of the population in the Philippines be boorren. With a fast population growth a year, the government has a crude(a) task in providing small fryren with enough resources to ensure their rights. For many adults and children, a 15-year-old who bears a child willingly or unwillingly ceases to be a girl-child that a unmatchable-year-old m a nonher(prenominal). An 11-year-old who takes on the task of tilling the ?elds ceases to be a boy alone a efforting farmhand. A 16-year-old who spends most of his time at a wage-factory ceases to be a young adolescent but a breadwinner.A 9-year-old girl made to peddle her body on the streets becomes a commodity. An 8-year-old boy on the street stealing someones money for food is a criminal. Boys and girls loitering in the streets sniffing rugby argon considered settlings of society. Seldom be their situations seen in the context of poverty and lack of maternal guidance and societal accountability. As dictated by affectiona te practice, a child may be considered an adult when he or she becomes spot of social production and reproduction, or when the child performs responsibilities such as fashioning a living or having his or her own family. temporary hookup children argon not distinguished simply by chronological age, bodily and mental development identifies an age range that sets a general definition of who argon children, that is, (also as de?ned by law) individuals on a impressioner floor 18 days old. On the other hand, different socio-cultural contexts characterize children and their childhoods. Children engage become to a greater extent vulnerable as they give in to their families insecurities, societys inadequacies and social exclusion as the marginalisation of the poor heightens.Despite the circumstances they find themselves in, children, y poph, and young quite a little be inactive developing individuals who pretend particular chooses and rights. They induct twain vulnerabilities and competencies. They argon not simply adults-to-be who need to be moulded or scantily children who atomic number 18 to be taken for granted. Children atomic number 18 social actors and usher out be active participants in social change. The Philippines is making significant maturate in the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Still, poverty coupled with semipolitical violence pose sombre challenges to children.The total number of poor Filipino families is estimated at 4. 7 million. The fast-growing population and the misfortune of ho phthisishold incomes to mounting as fast as commodity prices have resulted in more poor Filipino families. Poor refers to those whose incomes fall below the threshold set(p) by the government, or those who cannot afford to provide in a continue manner for their minimum basic needs for food, health, pedagogy, housing and other social amenities in life. In the Philippines, children who are victims of violence are ca tegorise as children needing special protection (CNSP).CNSP includes child labour children-victims of familiar ill-use and commercial call forthual exploitation abandoned and leave out or children without basal caregivers children of indigenous cultural groups child-victims of disasters children in situations of gird conflict street children and, children in conflict with the law. Violence against Filipino children are committed through physical and psychological hollo/deprivation that manifest in the worst forms of child labour, child prostitution, begging in the streets, abandonment, trafficking and /or recruitment as soldiers or couriers in areas of armed conflict.Most instances or forms of violence against Filipino children are attributed to poverty. The increasing reported cases of violence against children are the social manifestations of a galactic history of poverty, characterized by a chronic or cyclical define of deprivation of basic services that include basic pedagogics, health and fodder services, livelihood or employment opportunities, durable housing and clothing. need has alter several generations of a lot of Filipino families that has resulted in myopic enate capabilities, strained family relationship and corrupted values.Children are products of their environments. Their situation mirrors the realities of their families, community and society. While the Filipino family puts much premium on the welfare of its children, families are progressively breaking down in the midst of the struggle for survival. In the process, children are inadvertently sacrificed. The paragraphs on the next pages are studies of the situation of Filipino children and young people. Poverty and Luck of Education If you have an education, you wont go hungry and you live with comforts of a house. You are living a good life. There is Michelle 16 year olds.She lives in Payatas. Life is firm in a garbage town. At such young age children collect and sell garba ge. Despite the danger they are forced to work. legion(predicate) have had accidents and died. When typhoon Ketsana came, her house was destroyed. Her mom lost her job. With no house and no money for food, Michelle and her siblings could not go to school anymore. Twelve-year-old Marian is one of the millions of Filipino children whose education has taken a backseat due to poverty. The fifth of eight children, she fled her crime syndicate when she was 10 because she verbalize her jobless parents hurt her.Marian is supposed to be in the sixth grade this year, but shes currently enrolled as a Grade 1 pupil, learning basic language lessons and mathematics skills in a public elementary school in Cainta, Rizal. A certain Ate Rowena took her in and convinced her to go back to school. Marian has to face challenges in school. Other children tease me because Im still in Grade 1but I dont mind them because this is my chance to continue and finish my studies, she said. Despite the challenges , Marian is halcyon compare to thousands of other Filipino children.Education is a right, however at once 121 million people cannot go to school because of poverty. The poor would choose to ply the body instead of feeding the mind. They would choose to work in jobs out front working for a better future in school. Poverty has take them from their right to education. Billions of children are experiencing the nightmare of poverty. What does the future hold for them, and for the whole humans? Poverty, hungers prevent Filipino kids from getting basic education. Despite the annual development in the budget for basic education, fewer children are enrolling in schools.Poverty is one of the main causes of the hoidenishs poor education reputation and has affected connection in education in more ship canal than one. Lack of personal interest came in second at 22 percent, while the high cost of education came in a block third at 19. 9 percent. Other reasons include, among others, hou sekeeping, illness or disability, failure to cope with school work, and distance from school. The lack of interest among school children indicates a weakness on the part of the school system to bring in education interesting for the students.This may be due to poor teaching quality, inadequate facilities and supplies and poor infrastructure. Poverty, social exclusion, school distance and poor health care, are factors that weigh heavily on children and dampen their interest to pursue schooling. The challenge, therefore, is how to make the school interesting and encouraging earlier than intimidating how to make it inclusive, non-discriminatory and poor-sensitive rather than exclusive and elite-oriented and how to make it accommodating rather than restricting.Finally, the education content, process and ensure should be made more meaningful to the childrens life experiences by ensuring appropriate, culture-sensitive and values-based interventions. The Education department said hunge r and malnutrition are also barriers to participation in education. DepEd started implementing the Food for School Program at a lower distinguish the Accelerated thirst Mitigation Plan. It was done with the Health, Social Welfare departments, the National Food potentiality and local government units. As a motivation to go to school, it sends the terms message to poor children go to school to get one kilo of rice instead of the value of learning it is also an added burden for children as poor parents encourage their children to attend classes to be able to avail of the nonchalant ration. Street Children There is an estimated 1. 5 million street children in the Philippines. They survive each day by begging, selling or by taking medicines. Would you care to give them a future? The race has a high number of street children.Street children are susceptible to malnutrition, vehicular accidents, injuries illnesses, drug or substance abuse, sexual exploitation, gambling and harassm ent by police or other extortionists. They also tend to join gangs as a form of protection. A lot of children are also snarly in drug affair in their communities by serving as runners, lookouts, barkers or by doing repacking and cleaning up of paraphernalia. Drug pushers prefer to lead children, because they are obedient and not easily detected. Cebu city is a din centre of trade and tourism in the Visayan region of the Philippines.In Cebu city alone, it was estimated that about 1,300 children were eng old in such activities. Respondents in the said meditate entitled Childrens Involvement in the Production, Sales and Trafficking of Drugs in Cebu City reported that their environment was conducive for their involvement in drug trading particularly since their barangay officials were also involved in said illegal activities. The need for money was the major reason that drove them to work in drug trading. Most of the children-respondents were drug users themselves and about one-t hird of them had parents also involved in drug trading. slightly children got physically or verbally ill-treated both by the drug leader and law. Street children are generally thin, untidy, undernourished, and hardly equipped to survive the hazards of all(prenominal)day living and working on the streets. Some of the hazards they face include sickness, physical injuries from motor accidents, street fights, harassment from extortionists and police, sexual exploitation by pedophiles and pimps, exposure to substance abuse and sexually hereditary diseases. The most harsh substances street children used are inhalants, such as solvents, rugby and cough syrups, followed by marijuana and shabu.Marijuana and shabu in particular are sectiond with friends whenever one of the groups has enough money to purchase them. Some street children take drugs as often as once a day. Malnourishment More than half million Pinoy kids suffer from severe malnutrition. The next generation of Filipinos wi ll probably be shorter and lighter if the incidence of malnutrition in the country remains unchecked. match to the latest study by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute, three in every 10 Filipino children aged 5 and below are stunted or too short for their age while two in every 10 children also in the same age range are underweight.Four million Filipino children are malnourished and the number is expect to grow. FNRI revealed that the prevalence of malnutrition is highest in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, the Zamboanga Peninsula, southerly Tagalog, Southern Mindanao, and Eastern Visayas regions, where up to one-third of children under the age of 10 are either underweight or short for their age. but malnutrition is not just prevalent in rural regions, FNRI said. In Metro Manila, 4 out of every 100 children are underweight and two out of every 100 preschoolers are overweight. Increasing food prices would moreover worsen the malnutrition in the country.UNICEF demons trates that the underlying causes of malnutrition are multifaceted, including economic, social, and political factors. Poverty is recognized as both a cause and consequence of malnutrition. Child Trafficking Human trafficking is a serious problem in the Philippines. Aside from being a source country for human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, it is also a transit and close country. Between 60 000 and 100 000 children are trafficked annually, most of them girls. Children are recruited by agents from poor families in rural areas, who send their daughters to the city to earn money.The Philippines has a serious trafficking problem of children illegally recruited into the tourist industry for sexual exploitation. Destinations indoors the country are Metro Manila, Angeles City, Olongapo City, towns in Bulacan, Batangas, Cebu City, Davao and Cagayan de Oro City and other sex tourist resorts such as Puerto Galera, which is notorious, Pagsanjan, Laguna, San Fernando Pampanga, and many beach resorts throughout the country. The obligation of recruiters offers the parents and children attractive jobs in the country or abroad, and instead they are bend and forced and controlled into the sex industry for tourists.Child Abuse Over 200,000 Filipino children have experienced abuse. The DSWD classifies child abuse cases as abandoned, neglected, sexually abused, sexually exploited, physically abused/maltreated, victims of child labor, victims of illegal recruitment, victims of child trafficking, victims of armed conflict, and others (emotionally abused, etc. ). The regions with the most number of child abuse cases served are NCR, commutation Visayas, profound Luzon, Cagayan Valley, and Zamboanga Peninsula. The reduction in the number of cases served came mainly from Zamboanga Peninsula.More than half of the child abuse victims are aged 10 to below 18 historic period old. Revolting is the fact that about one out of four victims is aged below five years old. B y category, more than one-half of abused children served by the DSWD have either been abandoned or neglected, comprising the most common cases. Why are they abandoned and/or neglected? Are these transparent children victims of unwanted pregnancies, or of abject poverty? After abandoned/neglected children, sexually abused children are the second most common cases. And scorn the Anti-Rape Law of 1997 (Republic Act (RA) No. 353), the most common sexual abuse is round, followed by incest and acts of lasciviousness. Rape victims are predominantly female. One wonders whether the prohibition under RA 9346 in 2006 of the death penalty originally possible for convicted rape offenders under certain conditions has contributed to this social problem. And quite worrisome is the relatively large number of incest cases, calling attention to the breakdown of the family as a social institution. Does the CWC have a program to address this sensitive social turn up? Some victims of child labor are only 5 to below 10 years old.While child labourde?ned by the segment of Labor and Employment (DOLE) as the employment of children below 15 years of age and the employment of those below 18 years in gaga or deleterious work is declared illegal, the government di?erentiate it from child work, which is considered an delicious vocation for children. In reality though, the distinction is not clear. Even the unsusceptibility provided for when parents give consent for their childs engaging in labour validates the reality that a familys economic status decides whether or not a child is forced to work.Victims of paedophilia have been reported in Eastern Visayas, NCR, and MIMAROPA. Most of the sexually-exploited children are either victim of prostitution or of cyber pornography. The child prostitution cases went up slightly. Cyber pornography victims are served in NCR, Central Visayas, Zamboanga Peninsula, and Ilocos Region. And while the absolute number of cyber pornography cases may be small, there could possibly be many more, as is probably the case with child prostitution, who have not sought help from the DSWD.This should serve as a stern warning about the danger of allowing children unguided access to the Internet. berth of Education in the Philippines In spite of a constitutional mandate, the budget allocation on education is far lower than required in the Philippines. The impact of economic crisis and the pressures of increasing population are forcing parents to send their wards to overcrowded and ill-equipped public schools. And the school itself is not unusual in a country whose population of 92 million is exploding so fast, and whose education budget is so small, that it cannot find space to teach its children.More children are also approaching into the public schools as the economy tightens and families cannot afford the haven of private schools, with their littler classes. Many children, lesser classrooms This school year opened with a comprehensiv e enrolment of millions of students from elementary through high school, almost exactly a million more than in the previous year. Although the government began a classroom-building program, the schools are still classrooms short, according to Juan Miguel Luz, a former under secretary of education who works with the National Institute of Policy Study, which advocates better education policies.To compress in all the students, many classrooms have been divided into two by partitions. Stairwells and corridors have been converted into miniature classrooms. In the capital, Manila, Education Department figures presentation an average of one toilet for every 143 high school students and one for every 114 elementary school students. At Munoz-Palma High School, some lavatories have been converted into claustrophobic faculty lounges, while the lounges have been put to use as classrooms. I have 106 students in my class and 90 seats, said Rico Encinares, 34, a chemistry teacher. Everybody has seats if some of them are absent. and if they all come, there are not enough seats. They have to share seats. Teacher- Missing on quality education Only about 10% of his students the truly motivated ones get a quality education, he said. several(prenominal) attention is almost impossible. I dont know the label of all my students, even at the end of the school year, he said. You only remember the ones who are very noisy or very good. But the silent ones who just sit there listening, you cant devolve their names. -Teacher- Children in conflict The political violence continues to affect children in the country. local anesthetic authorities have been involved in death-squad operations targeting children. There are also reports of children being used by government linked paramilitaries and armed opposition. Children, sometimes as young as 11 years old, have been recruited by armed rebel movements, such as the New mickles Army, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and the Abu Sayya f Group, to serve as combatants, spies, guards, cooks or medics. tally to 2005 estimates, up to 13 per cent of the armed group MILFs 10,000 members were children. According to existing studies, ordinarily males between the ages of 11 and 17 who have low educational attainment, mostly reaching only the elementary level. They are usually middle or in-between children in very large low-income families. discordant studies have established that many of these children are either on the streets or of the streets when they were apprehended.While a signi?cant number still live with parents or a relative, they are usually out on the streets to eke out a living or are involved in peer groups or gangs, which are usually associated with vices and illegal activities. Justice The age of criminal responsibility is 9 years. Despite legislative and procedural safeguards put in place in 2006 with the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, children in detention are imprisoned together with adults in poor detention conditions, increasing the adventure of physical or sexual abuse.The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is dismay over the increasing reports of cases of child abuse and neglect and the notable deficiencies in domestic legislation as regards penalizing all forms of abuse, neglect and mis word, including sexual abuse. This includes supposed cases of sexual abuse of children in the framework of religious institutions. There are also a number of reported cases of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment of children, particularly of children in detention. Many children below the age of 18 are placed with adults in detention.References * http//resourcecentre.savethechildren.se/start/countries/philippines * http//www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/111257/news/specialreports/poverty-hunger-prevent-filipino-kids-from-getting-basic-education * http//newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20080705-146662/4M-malnourished-Filipino-children * http//newsinfo.inquirer.net/23229 9/more-filipino-children-stunted-due-to-malnutritionixzz2YSsYkc6e* http//newsinfo.inquirer.net/topstories/topstories/view/20100204-251263/Over-200000-Filipino-children-are-victims-of-abuse-says-group * http//www.nscb.gov.ph/headlines/StatsSpeak/2011/101011_rav.asp * http//www.crin.org/docs/resources/publications/violence.pdf * http//southasia.oneworld.net/archive/globalheadlines/school-education-faces-worst-ever-crisis-in-philippines