Women and children caught in conflict

THEY still remember the day the military came.

Twelve-year-old Ronald was beaten by soldiers on the pretext that his family had helped coordinate an ambush in 2003. “A group of them held me and kicked me. They kicked me three times on the chest and when I got up they grabbed a chicken and hit me on the back with it…One of them even pointed a gun at Nanay and said, ‘Maybe you want us to kill you!'”

Jessa, 14, watched as the military aimed their rifles at her father and other men and made them undress in order to look for marks that would indicate that they were New People’s Army (NPA) fighters.

Cita, 40, and her children keep moving from place to place in order to avoid the military. Her husband is in the NPA.

Their stories are among the many collected in “Uncounted Lives: Children, Women and Conflict in the Philippines”, a needs-assessment study commissioned by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

UNICEF commissioned IBON foundation, the Center for Women’s Resources, and the Children’s Rehabilitation Center to conduct the study.

The research covers a four-year period, from 2001 to 2005, conducted in eight communities in the provinces of Abra, Mindoro Oriental, Capiz, Leyte, Surigao del Sur, Compostela Valley, North Cotabato, and Maguindanao. These places are reputed to be strongly influenced by rebel groups, have a history of conflict, and are ongoing sites of armed conflict.

Source: UNICEF

According to the study, children and women perceive the NPA and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) as providing concrete benefits for the communities. On the other hand, there is distinct apprehension about the presence of military soldiers.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police were not interviewed as the research team believed that interviewing armed forces in the field constituted a security concern, and because the study’s specific focus was to see how armed conflict affected communities in areas affected by the triumvirate of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)-NPA-National Democratic Front (NDF) and MILF-BIAF (Bangsamoro Islamic Auxiliary Force).

UNICEF Country Representative Dr. Nicholas Alipui acknowledged that the report was not balanced, but said that it was an “independent research conducted by academicians who went behind the frontlines to get the voices of women and children caught in armed conflict.” He added that UNICEF would send copies of the study to the AFP and PNP, as well as other government agencies.

The research said that textual analysis of official AFP documents on military strategy and tactics tends to indicate that the distinction between combatants and civilian noncombatants is not only blurred but explicitly disregarded. “Unless (there is a) radical change in core AFP doctrines, (this will) result in continuing and ever greater numbers of civilian victims of military operations in the near future.”

The study also found that the impact of fighting on children and women has been more severe, the more intense, frequent and closer the battles were to their communities. This was the case in MILF-influenced areas such as North Cotabato and Maguindanao.

One key finding was that there was no direct or indirect evidence of any sort of forced recruitment of child soldiers by either the MILF or NPA. “The data gathered indicate that children eagerly volunteer to join these armed groups, that some parents willingly give their consent, and that communities often look on approvingly.”

The book makes the following recommendations:

• Alleviate overall poverty, backwardness and weak governance
• Improve relief efforts and ensure greater support for rehabilitation
• Address the deliberate or otherwise reckless endangerment of civilians and civilian communities, especially children and women, during counter-insurgency operations

Alipui added that he hoped the book’s launch would spark vigorous debate on women and children caught in conflict.