CHILDHOODS LOST IN INADEQUATE JAILS

AT age 14, Christian was taken to a city jail in the Philippines on
charges of selling and using a powerful methamphetamine known as "shabu."

Nearly three years later, he is still in a cell, smaller than a boxing
ring, with 28 other youths awaiting a verdict in court.

But Christian and his young cellmates are lucky. The Caloocan City
jail is one of very few in the Philippines where minors are separated
from adults.

Largely because the government cannot afford other options, most of
the thousands of juveniles detained each year must fend for themselves
in overcrowded jails among grown men charged with murder, rape and
other violent crimes.

For many, their families do not have the money that can help speed up
a notoriously slow and overloaded justice system.

"They should not be here. It is the court who orders them to stay,"
said Alejandro Almacen, the warden of Caloocan City Jail.

"If they are incarcerated now, it will ruin their futures."

Children as young as nine can be jailed in the Philippines. In
Indonesia, criminal liability starts even lower at age 8, while it is
14 in Japan.

"The most difficult part is losing hope," said Christian, protesting
his innocence. "Because of them, I was not able to pursue my studies
and I was separated from my family."

After sporadic hearings, he is no closer to knowing his fate on the
drug charges. The more serious of the two, selling shabu, has a
mandatory sentence of life in prison or the death penalty.

With a third of the 86 million people in the Philippines living in
poverty and families commonly having six, seven or eight children,
studies show that poverty, desperation and neglect play large roles in
youth crime.

Juvenile Justice Network-Philippines, which works with young
offenders, estimates there were more than 4,000 children in jails and
detention centers as of last month.

"Most of them were charged with minor crimes such as petty theft,
sniffing of glue or solvents, vagrancy and violation of curfew hours,"
it said in a statement urging faster action on a bill in Congress to
set up a separate legal track for minors.

The group says about 240 juveniles are serving sentences in adult
penitentiaries, including 18 on death row who cannot prove they are
minors because they have no birth certificates.

By detaining children with adults and sentencing them to capital
punishment, the Philippines is breaking international treaties it has
signed and its own laws.

Responsibility for young offenders rests with local authorities, but
the justice department has started to address the issue by working
with several other agencies to determine the exact number of jailed
minors and to share resources.

"We really have to decongest our prisons and detention cells," Justice
Secretary Raul Gonzalez said on television.

Proposals for a stand-alone system for young offenders, including
punishment options such as community service, have been in Congress
since the 1990s.

The Senate has resumed deliberations on the Comprehensive Juvenile
Justice System bill.

The bill would raise criminal liability to age 12, provide separate
detention centers for children, establish diversion programs at the
community level and create the Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention.

But it is a long way from being passed, with anti-terrorism
legislation, hundreds of other bills and a variety of inquiries also
demanding the attention of Congress.

Even with the juvenile justice law, the debt-laden government would
have to find funding for the program and facilities.

The United Nations' children's agency, UNICEF, has joined with
Juvenile Justice Network-Philippines and other groups to publicize the
issue of minors in jail and push for reforms.

"In many cases a child is charged with an offense where the penalty is
only 10 days in prison or a fine of about P50," said Alberto Muyot, a
lawyer who works for UNICEF.

"That child may eventually be released after the process has gone
through, perhaps after a period of 12 months, so that's one year taken
away from the life of a child for something so small."

The plight of these children was highlighted in "Bunso" (youngest), a
documentary film by Ditsi Carolino that tracked three boys held at a
jail in Cebu.

They and dozens of other minors were packed into one cell but mingled
with the adults during the day. Food was in short supply and the
flimsy roof leaked whenever it rained, soaking the thin mats and
cardboard the boys used as beds on the concrete floor.

Two city jails were far cleaner and better equipped than the one in
"Bunso."

Improvements to protect and help juveniles have been made in some
facilities since the film was shot in 2001, but the majority remain
spartan at best.

In Caloocan, the minors have too few simple plywood beds to go round.
But they do have a solid roof, regular meals, a television, portable
stereo and basic lessons in mathematics, science and English given
once a week by a local teacher.

Jesper, 14, was arrested after being implicated by a friend who
confessed to stealing and trying to sell steel pipes worth about $5.
He had been at the jail for a week, had not seen a lawyer or a judge,
and had no idea how long he would be there.

"I miss my family," Jesper said in a soft, halting voice. "There's
nobody to talk to here."