Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Manila (Agenzia Fides) - National Children's Month promoted by the department for social wellbeing and development of the government in Manila had its focal event in Children's Day on October 26. Every year in the month of October the Philippines government launches initiatives to improve the physical and intellectual abilities of children and to increase public awareness of the importance of protecting children from ever more frequent abuse.
The government is joined in this intention by NGOs, civil society associations and also Catholic groups and movements such as the Salesian Sisters, Daughters of Mary Help of Christians who have their own programmes to help children.
The first field in which the Catholic community is involved is education. In the Philippines at least 2 million school age children do not go to school, they are deprived of a right, often because of the extreme poverty of the family which finds itself forced to send children out to earn money.
Therefore the lack of instruction is connected with the problem of child labour, an evil which Catholic diocesan Justice and Peace commissions strive to combat up and down the country. The Philippines has an estimated 2.2 million child workers officially, but the real number is certainly higher, about 5 million minors between the age of 5 and 14 work despite a law which bans work for minors under 15 and dangerous work for minors under 18. It is estimated that between 400,000 and 1.6 million children in the Philippines are forced into hard labour in conditions of slavery.
A third area where parishes help minors is assistance to street more than 100,000 in Metro-Manila in unspeakable conditions of material, educational and sanitary poverty. Street children are exposed to violence and risk including drug abuse which causes irreparable brain damage in a relatively short length of time. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 29/10/2007 righe 33 parole 347)
