Preda Celebrates Third Anniversary of the Awarding of the Shalom Human Rights Award

PRESS RELEASE

The Preda Foundation celebrated on 7 May 2020 the third anniversary of the awarding of the German Shalom Human Rights Award by the working group (AK) Shalom – For Justice and Peace at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. The Shalom Award has been awarded since 1982 to honor those with extraordinary commitment in the field of peace and human rights.

The work of the Preda Foundation in defending human rights, saving and healing and protecting children from human traffickers and child abusers and campaigning for the release of children from detention in sub-human overcrowded jail cells in danger of coronavirus continues and has been highlighted in the media recently with the campaign to persuade Metro Manila Mayors to release from detention the many children under 15 years of age that have no criminal charges against them.

The German human rights organizations, Tatort based in Cologne and Misereor based in Aachen, have written a joint letter to all the mayors and to Secretary Eduardo Año of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) appealing for the release of the children and their transfer to their parents or NGOs like Preda Foundation where they will receive therapy, respect, affirmation, education and a new life in a healthy open countryside environment.

Father Shay Cullen and Francis Bermido Jr., president and vice president of Preda respectively wrote to various mayors in Metro Manila and sent them a link to 12 testimonies of small children that suffered abuse and torture in the cells of the Bahay Pag-asa. In part, it said.”

“It is only a matter of days or weeks until coronavirus gets into the overcrowded youth detention home or Bahay Pag-asa in your city. As mayor, you have the responsibility of protecting the children detained there from the pandemic. Many small children and teenagers without charges are held in subhuman conditions in cells. Please visit our photo page to see what they suffer and endure behind steel bars, beaten and tortured. You don’t know this until now perhaps and you can stop it immediately. The accountability for the health, life and death of these children are in your hands. The Supreme Court has issued Administrative Circular 38-2020 that allows the release of persons deprived of liberty, especially children, through payment of reduced bail and recognizance.”

A News report on the Children’s Channel, made by Chris Rogers for Sky News

Tatort and Misereor, meanwhile, urged the mayors “to provide well-equipped homes and rehabilitation facilities to children in conflict with the law as mandated by Republic Act 9344 or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act.

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