There is a rising tide of people power in the world today and it is female power. Women are standing up and speaking out as never before and more people are sitting up and listening to what they have to say. Their message is basic, straightforward and its most important words are: freedom from abuse, equality, justice, education.
 

We entered the so-called Bahay Pagasa (House of Hope.) It turned out to be a children’s jail. We brought snacks and drinks to share with the young people in the cells. About 25 girls were crowded into one room. No air conditioning here, no fans either, so we brought some, but the rancid body smells pervaded the cells in the hot tropical heat.
 

The Philippines is a country with some of the greatest inequity in the world. Sixteen million Filipinos suffer serious poverty out of a population of 107 million. Six million live in extreme poverty. 
 

Christmas is the celebration of the wonder and great value we place on children. We celebrate their rights and dignity. Every family ought to protect and care for their children, not pamper and spoil them as objects and even victims of crass commercialisation and exaggerated gift-giving. 
 
No gift can ever buy the love of a child. No gift is more valuable than the genuine love and appreciation of parents for their children.
 

She was only a seven-years-old, call her Angelica. She never knew or imagined the sexual violence that was to be done to her by her stepfather, Apolonio Valdez. He took her from the small, two-roomed house to the nearby forest and assaulted and sexually abused her.
 

Thousands of undocumented immigrants who have crossed into the United States (US) in the past several months have had their children forcibly taken from them and placed in cages in detention centres by the president, Donald Trump.
 
Church leaders of many denominations and political leaders—Democrats and Republicans alike—and millions of good-hearted Americans and the international community expressed outrage calling it a violation of children’s human rights and a form of child abuse.
 

After a French court acquitted a 30-year-old man of child rape after he had sexual relations with an 11-year-old, the public was outraged and rightly so. 
 
The judge ruled that unless it could be proven that he had used force or intimidation, it was not rape but sexual assault of a child and he could be sentenced to a much lesser penalty. 
 

It is a widely held belief that children are not competent to perform certain tasks, because they have not yet reached a certain age. As a consequence, we tend to limit or restrain their autonomy as well as their freedom of choice.

However, can we really be confident in saying that under a certain age, they are incompetent to perform a particular task?