N.Z. help for Filipino children

Press, 24 April 1987, Page 37

N.Z. help for Filipino children

NZPA Hong Kong By TIM DONOGHUE

The New Zealand Ambassador in Manila, Mr Paul Cotton, has presented the Philippines President, Mrs Corazon Aquino, with a $500,000 cheque to assist Filipino child victims of armed conflict. Mr Cotton recently presented Mrs Aquino with the cheque to the United Nations Children’s Emer-

gency Fund (Unicef) at the Malacanang Palace. During the short ceremony he said that children caught in situations of armed conflict were innocent victims. In March, 1986, the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, presented President Aquino with another cheque for $500,000 for Unicefs emergency programme in Negros Occidental.

According to Unicefs sources, there may be up to 2.4 million children up to the age of 18 in the Philippines, of a total 55 million population, who have been direct or indirect victims of armed conflict. These include children who have disappeared or have been arrested, detained, tortured, raped, wounded, killed, or forcibly displaced.

The child victims come mostly from poor peasant families in rural areas of Mindanao, Visayas and Luzon.

Many children, caught in the crossfire between Government troops and

communist guerrillas, are killed or wounded. Children of displaced families, on the other hand, find themselves constantly exposed to malnutrition, disease and injury. Among the goals of the Unicef project are: To accept the concept of children as zones of peace; to provide children in situations of armed conflict with opportunities to realise their full potential; and to encourage Government and non-Gov-ernment organisations to assume collective responsibility for children caught up in armed conflict situations.