Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Children Joining Insurgence Groups in the Philippines


Children living in conflict areas of the Phillipines and other area are more easily influenced to voluntarily join and support armed insurgent groups after suffering traumatic experiences, according to a UNICEF study.


To my interest, I decided to take a more in depth look at the children who join armed insurgent groups. As a result, I found that "The Philippines is home to two of the world's longest-running armed conflicts, yet a credible accounting of their human and economic costs has not been available, until now," said Emmanuel Soriano de Dios, the Report's Lead Author and Professor of Economics at the University of the Philippines. "This Report is the first quantifiable documentation to show that cultural isolation, discrimination, and a lack of basic services, such as electricity, water, roads and education, can be predictors of armed encounters," said Professor de Dios.


As an ongoing problem, these children are dying at the hands of other children who do not fully understand the meaning of life or what it means to take a life.


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