Country report of the Philippines on the situation of children in residential care

Country report of the Philippines on the situation of children in residential care in anticipation of the Second International Conference on Children and Residential Care: New Strategies for a New Millennium, to be held in Stockholm 12 – 15 May 2003. In the Philippines, statistics on various indicators of vulnerability suggest that a significant number of children are in need of special protection. Of the 22.53 million school aged children (aged 5-17 years), only 77% were enrolled during the school-year 1999-2000 and about 5 million were not attending school. There are an estimated 3.7 million working children, 2.2 million of whom are engaged in hazardous work; the number of street children is estimated at 44,435; the number of abused and exploited children served by the Department of Social Development and Welfare (DSWD) in 2002 was 10,045. There are 158,297 children with disabilities. The DSWD served 10,222 children in conflict with the law in 2002, most of whom are boys between 14 and 17 years old who have attained at least an elementary education and who are middle children in a family with 4 to 6 members. There are approximately 10,589 children in residential care.