Recognizing the rights of children orphaned by the war on drugs in Manila: a child rights-based approach to transitional justice

This study investigates the allegations made by human rights groups that, under Duterte’s War on Drugs children’s rights were violated because they were deprived of their caregivers. This research confirms those allegations. The War on Drugs left these children with unre-solved trauma, further plunging them into poverty and, in some cases, discriminated within their own communities. These effects are exacerbated by the fact that, due to the govern-ment’s refusal to recognize its duties towards these children, there has been little to no inter-vention relating to these children’s specific needs. Based on an examination of literature on the meaning and implications of a Child Rights-Based Approach and of Transitional Justice, and on the findings generated by my field-research consisting of interviews with experts in transitional justice, legal experts, and grassroots NGOs in the Philippines, I explore the po-tential and possible content of a child-rights-based transitional justice mechanism that would provide (full or partial) redress to the above-mentioned orphaned children.