Only 55 ‘homes’ for juvenile delinquents operational nationwide, says rights commission
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2019 11:29:51 +0000
ONLY 55 out of the 114 “homes” for juvenile delinquents nationwide are operational as of June 2018, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) said on Tuesday.
These “homes,” called Bahay Pag-Asa (House of Hope), are provided under the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act (JJWA), in which one should be built in each of the 81 provinces and 33 highly urbanized cities in the country to offer intervention programs for children in conflict with the law (CICL).
The CICL refers to a child who is accused of having committed an offense under Philippine laws.
Data by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in 2016 said that about 65 percent of children in conflict with the law come from poor families without a stable source of income.
The Child Right’s Network (CRN) expressed its concern over the eventual passage of a bill lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) from 15 to 9 years old.
The House of Representatives’ committee on justice, on Monday, approved the bill that would amend Republic Act 10630 which, aside from lowering the MACR, would subject the child to “mandatory confinement” at the Bahay Pag-Asa.
“The finalization and passage of the bill, which has been pending at the committee level since 2016, is a stark mockery of the field of child development. Despite the numerous repeated warnings from experts, social workers, and even the international community, the justice committee still passed the bill on first reading,” the group said in a statement.
“The bill hinged on the idea of rampant criminality associated with children, but the data from the Philippine National Police (PNP) says otherwise,” the group said.
In the PNP Annual Comparative Statistics from January 2002 to December 2012, crimes committed by children were only at 2 percent.
Bahay Pag-Asa refers to a 24-hour child-caring institution, which is established, funded and managed by local government units (LGUs) and NGOs providing short-term residential care for CICLs. JOVE MOYA
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