Child abuse focus shifts to homes

BAGUIO CITY — Human rights abuses are now not the sole enclave of the state but have also shifted to the home, with fathers, mothers, and even children as the perpetrators.

This is what an official of the Commission of Human Rights said here yesterday in a talk with a non-government organization servicing indigenous peoples.

CHR lawyer Jocelyn Bastian said most of the cases of human rights abuses here are child abuse cases.

She said cases of abuse by the police or military have gone down such that their office is now busy concentrating on giving seminars and workshops on human rights instead of investigating HR cases.

But Dinteg, a legal advocate center for indigenous peoples in the Cordillera, said human rights abuses by the state are still prevalent in the region.

Dinteg executive director Beverly Longid cited a case in Kalinga where military men impregnated at least nine women who attended a supposed Army Literacy Program.

Longid said Innabuyog, a women’s organization based there, reported of incidents in Tabuk and Kalinga where women were made to join the ALP.

After the sessions, the military men "courted" and had sexual relations with some of the women. When the women became pregnant, the soldiers were nowhere to be found, Innabuyog said.

Longid also mentioned the case of farmer Johnny Kamareg who was allegedly murdered in Betwagan by members of the 22nd Special Forces Company.

Peter Dangiwan, an outspoken opponent of intrusion of mining and dam companies in Kalinga, was also shot to death by suspected rightist vigilantes this year in Pinukpuk, Kalinga.

And three farmers from Bakin town, Benguet continue to languish in jail after they were arrested in November 1999 for allegedly conspiring with the communist New People’s Army.

Dinteg also said that military companies here are concentrated in areas where there are potential development projects, bolstering their claim that government troopers were deployed to protect business interests and quell opposition to controversial projects.

Dinteg and other human rights organizations joined militant leftist groups at a protest rally yesterday to commemorate the International Day of Human Rights, and called on President Arroyo to recall policies and programs that injure the rights of indigenous people.