Children as young as nine could be jailed in the Philippines for certain crimes under a proposed law backed by the president, sparking concern Monday from the UN and rights groups.
President Rodrigo Duterte’s allies have been pushing to pass laws by December that would restore the death penalty and lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 9.
Duterte won May elections largely because of a vow to kill tens of thousands of drug dealers, also promising on the campaign trail to close a loophole in the juvenile justice system that he said allowed traffickers to use minors as narcotic couriers.
“Adult criminals knowingly and purposely make use of youth below 15 years of age to commit crimes, such as drug trafficking,” Pantaleon Alvarez, one of the proposed law’s main backers, said in an explanatory note.
While Duterte wanted the age threshold dropped to 12, his allies went one step further by calling for it to be lowered to nine.
The UN children’s agency UNICEF reminded the Philippines of its international obligations.
Manila is a state party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which says criminal responsibility below the age of 12 is not acceptable.
“Jail is no place for a child. It is alarming for children to be institutionalized (sent to a penal institution),” UNICEF said in a position paper sent to AFP Monday. “It will be retrogression on the part of the Philippine Government.”
Rights organizations launched a campaign called #ChildrenNotCriminals to urge lawmakers to reconsider their support for the law.

Source: Arab News