Wednesday, June 18, 2008 CLB launches program for kids
THE Children’s Legal Bureau, Inc. (CLB) launched its “Laban Bata” program yesterday as part of its campaign for “a just world for children.”
The program is aimed at defending and protecting more children from all types and abuses and exploitation.
“This is to raise public awareness on children’s rights and to capacitate children and communities to enforce these rights,” said CLB Executive Director Joan Saniel.
The Laban Bata program will also provide legal assistance to abused and exploited children and those in conflict with the law, Saniel said.
Saniel said they have been providing the same services offered under the Laban Bata program for a while now. She said, however, that it is only now that they formally launched the program and gave it a name.
Saniel said they have also been training legal counsels to be more sensitive to the children they are representing.
Effects
“Usually, they only think about winning the case and not really think about the welfare of the child and of the effects the proceedings have on the child,” said Saniel.
Though Laban Bata provides legal assistance to abused children, Saniel added that they do not stop there.
“We also train them (children) to empower them and fight for their rights,” Saniel said.
The common cases that CLB has received were sexual and physical abuses on children. Some cases involved psychological abuses.
Saniel said most of their clients were indigents. CLB’s services are free but they accept paying clients to subsidize non-paying ones.
Yet with several clients coming to them for help, only a few actually end up filing a case.
Settlement
“Some clients no longer come back to the office and they can’t be reached through phone. The way we see these situations is that either they settled the case with the accused, or the child got scared, or parents decided for the children,” said Saniel.
She expressed worries over case settlements since these are not allowed in cases involving child abuse.
“Grabe man gud ni nga (These are heinous) offenses,” said Saniel.
The CLB, meanwhile, said efforts by the government to provide protection to children are still lacking.
“We just conducted the UN (United Nations) Convention on the Rights of a Child (UNCRC) monitoring and we have conducted this with other NGOs all over the Visayas, and we found there were weaknesses and gaps. The Philippines is a signatory to this convention, yet not all provisions have been fully implemented,” she said. (EPB)
