Child protection
CHILD protection as define by Save the Children are measures and structures to prevent and respond to abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence affecting children.
Child protection means safeguarding children from harm which includes violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect. The goal of child protection is to promote, protect and fulfil children’s rights to protection from abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence.
Article III, Section 3 of the constitution adopted in 1987 includes the following provisions: The State shall defend: ( 2 ) The right of children to assistance, including proper care and nutrition, and special protection from all forms of neglect, abuse, cruelty, exploitation, and other conditions prejudicial to their development.
Children young as they are should be properly cared for and nurtured. Their environment should be safe and they should be protected from dangers to which they may be vulnerable.
In our country, a range of government agencies and mechanisms provide national policy and program responses to child maltreatment such as the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the Council for the Welfare of Children (CWC) the Committee for the Special Protection of Children (CSPC), Barangay Community Councils and the Department of Education. Yet despite this effort of the government still lots of children are neglected and abused. There are still growing number of children in the Philippines that are becoming victims of abuse, violence and exploitation that occurs mostly within the family where they are supposed to be safe and being cared for. Cases of child neglect and other forms of maltreatment are also more common in families especially for those living in poverty and among parents who are teenagers or who abuse drugs or alcohol. Growing number of children are also abused outside of the home by strangers.
Documentaries that speak on children who are abused by their immediate family are rampant on televisions. An example is a father who is supposed to the first and foremost hero to his children molested his child because his daughter looks like her mother who is an OFW, a mother who brutally killed her month old son. There is also a mother who allowed her three children to enter child pornography. I learned too of an aunt who tortured her niece and eventually her niece died. While she is now in prison, the pain of what she did is like ghost haunting her family. In my neighborhood, a mother often badmouthed her children. Looking at these situations, I can’t help but ask myself on what is happening in our society today. Filipinos are known of having close family ties. But with what we observed today, it seems that even inside the home, children are not already safe.
Child protection should be the main concern of everybody. It should be a collaborative effort of the community and not the sole responsibility of the government agencies concern. As the former president of Africa, Nelson Mandela said "Safety and security don't just happen, they are the result of collective consensus and public investment. We owe our children, the most vulnerable citizens in our society, a life free of violence and fear. Likewise with what Indira Gandhi said "We must protect families, we must protect children, who have inalienable rights and should be loved, should be taken care of physically and mentally, and should not be brought into the world only to suffer.