Human rights approach vs Sama Bajau mendicancy sought

 By Dominic Sanchez

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) is appealing to government and stakeholders to address Sama-Bajau mendicancy with due consideration to their human rights as enshrined by the law.

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Jan 14 (PIA) – The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) is appealing to government and stakeholders to address Sama-Bajau mendicancy with due consideration to their human rights as enshrined by the law.

In its Human Rights Advisory on the Government Policies Concerning Indigenous Persons issued last month, mendicancy by members of the Sama-Bajau community in the busy streets “presents a web of issues among various stakeholders and compounding this is the complexity that the pandemic brings into the policy equation”.

“The immediate concern is to ensure the safety of the members of the Sama-Bajau group,” said CHR-9 regional director Atty. Judelyn Macapili in the advisory.

The CHR moreover calls on the duty-bearers especially local government units to heed the needs of the Sama-Bajau children who are being exploited in the streets for mendicancy.

“We encourage local governments and other concerned agencies to extensively mobilize their resources to provide protection to these individuals considering the hazards they regularly encounter in an environment they are not familiar with,” the advisory explains, referring to the traveling of the Sama Bajaus to other cities for mendicancy.

The CHR recommends that in order to address the mendicancy issue, local governments and concerned agencies must engage and consult with the community members themselves, and that all interventions must adhere to “human rights-based approach” in order to have a more viable long-term solution to this problem. (RVC/EDT/DIS/PIA9-Zamboanga City, file photo from PIA Western Mindanao Facebook page)