THE City Social Welfare and Development Office (CSWDO) announced that protection services for thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in transitory sites are still being implemented.
CSWDO Chief Socorro Rojas said protection services such as the child protection program, and livelihood support initiatives such as the food for work program, remain part of the ongoing initiatives being implemented in the 11 transitory sites still in operation.
“We continue to help the families in the transitory site,” Rojas said, citing that there are still 2,095 IDPs housed in the 11 transitory sites.
The IDPs form part of the thousands of people who were displaced during the 21-day September 2013 siege by members of the Moro National Liberation Front in Zamboanga City.
However, Rojas lamented that some families from transitory sites still turn to mendicancy as a means of livelihood, bringing their children along with them.
Rojas said her office is looking to coordinate with the local police and the village council for the protection of children of the respective villages to counter the mendicancy culture, and to protect the children from possible exploitation practices.
“We cannot do it alone because definitely it should be a multi-disciplinary approach. We need the assistance of the Non-Government Organizations to include those in the barangay,” she said. (Bong Garcia/VoxPop Philippines)
