CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Central Luzon said the rise of child abuse cases in Central Luzon is a call to teach the children to prevent sexual abuse in a way that they would understand.
CHR 3 Training Specialist I Jay Mark Cabrera pointed out that educating the children using developmental and age-appropriate learning styles is a multi-disciplinary advocacy.
“We are partnering with a multi-sectoral team composed of psychologists, teachers, special education teachers and even pediatricians and doctors for children. This is for us to know how to teach human rights to children given their thinking capacity,” he stated.
He explained that the agency’s perspective is always on human rights so they partner with international organizations and local civil societies for the initiative.
With this, CHR Central Luzon initiated Kabataan Karapatan Caravan which involved visitations to different public schools to teach human rights in non-technical and non-legalistic levels.
“We make sure that there is balance in sensitivity and teaching human rights and their protection. We have to balance teaching the children on how to avoid sexual exploitation while having them grasp the concept,” Cabrera said.
The agency transformed it to an Online Kabataan Karapatan Caravan which was already launched in Meycauayan and City of San Jose Del Monte in Bulacan which recorded high cases of sexual abuse among children.
In addition, CHR 3 taps Consuelo Foundation to produce charts to educate the children on where they should be touched, and the limitations when they are playing with others.
“We are also active in monitoring the barangay functionality of gender-based violence (GBV) desks. All barangays have these desks but unfortunately, not all barangays are active. We are pushing for these GBVdesks to function, because the barangays councils are the ones who should be receiving the public’s report on violence,” he added.
In partnership with the United Nations, CHR has a referral website which is the gbvcovid.report.
For 2020, the website listed 12 GBV cases in the region each coming from Angeles City, Mabalacat City, and Guagua, and three involved in Mexico, Pampanga; one from Sta Maria, two in San Jose Del Monte in Bulacan; one in Orani, Bataan; one in San Jose, Nueva Ecija; and one in Concepcion, Tarlac. (PIA 3)