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POVERTY, CUSTOMS LEAD TO EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN

Updated: February 02, 1993 05:00 PM GMT
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The head of an international movement for children´s rights here says illegal adoption and a perception of children as sources of family income have reduced Filipino children to "cheap commodities."

"Though predominantly Catholic, Filipinos need a change in attitude," lawyer Milabel Cristobal, chair of the Defense for Children International-Philippines (DCIP), told UCA News recently.

Cristobal decried "the continuing trafficking and sale of Filipino children." Her group has documented cases of minors driven to prostitution by their parents. Cristobal said the practice of selling children continues unabated primarily due to the extreme poverty of many Filipino families.

Child trafficking occurs mostly in hospitals and clinics, she explained, with the aid of unscrupulous doctors and nurses, some of whom also simulate birth records of sold infants.

According to Cristobal, her Dutch co-worker, Sister of Charity Luisa van Amersfoort, once was offered a baby for 300 pesos (US$12).

The lawyer also recalls how a Filipina professional sought her legal advise about a contract with a doctor who had agreed to sell her a newborn baby. The woman, Cristobal said, wanted the contract to stipulate that she could return the infant if she found the baby had "defects."

"Imagine! An infant is regarded as a mere object of commerce" subject to terms of sale and exchange or refund, Cristobal exclaimed.

There is a cultural bias against child adoption, she claimed, citing the derogatory epithet "Ampon ka lang!" (You are only an adopted child!), which reflects the lowly status of an adopted vis-a-vis a natural child.

Deformed and handicapped children, she added, are seriously discriminated against by the Filipino preference for "clean and healthy" children.

Cristobal pointed out that the low regard in which offspring are held, especially among the poor, comes from a common perception among Filipinos of children as little more than potential financial assets.

"We should overhaul the things we believe in," she said.

Her group documented the case of a 16-year-old prostitute in Ermita, Manila´s red-light district, who said her father forced her to prostitute herself to Japanese tourists. The girl told DCIP that many girls her age dream of becoming strip-tease dancers and marrying Japanese men to escape poverty.

Cristobal also cited documented cases of child prostitutes in the resort town of Pagsanjan, 75 kilometers southeast of Manila, who were delivered to foreign pedophiles in exchange for houses and other amenities.

"Let´s call a spade a spade," she said. "These are poignant cases where the parents themselves have literally sold their own children."

A United Nations Children´s Fund (UNICEF) report says there were 60,700 children roaming Metro Manila and about 25,000 in the outlying areas. The number has grown tremendously, according to UNICEF, due to brutality, abuse and parents´ lack of concern about their children´s whereabouts.

END

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