'Ghost' Child Prisoners Languish in Philippine Jails |TODAY|

Submitted by dan. on 2007-05-08 21:08.
Law Enforcement | Offender Support | Prisons

"Until now, the government has yet to officially acknowledge and stop this egregious practice of police child detention and torture, notwithstanding protests aired by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Human Rights Committee against this inhumanity," the Coalition to Stop Child Detention Through Restorative Justice said in a statement Tuesday.

It added the tedious process begins with police paperwork that undergoes evaluation by the prosecutors, and eventually winds up in snail-paced and backlog-ridden courts, then back again to the police, at the expense of children traumatized and brutalized during police incarceration in the interim.

"More children will continue to suffer from this institutionalized violence unless the President observes in good faith the letter and spirit of the law by requiring DSWD and BJMP to assume custody over CAVL even without court orders," it said.

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