University of the Philippines Manila
The Health Sciences Center
Ermita, Manila / School of Health Sciences in Leyte, Aurora, South Cotabato
Dr. Madrid to speak in UK conference on reducing violence
Dr. Bernadette J. Madrid, Director of the UP-PGH Child Protection Unit, will be a plenary speaker in the first ever international conference on reducing violence. The event, known as the Global Violence Reduction Conference 2014, will be held on 17-19 September 2014 at King’s College, Cambridge, United Kingdom.It is organized by the Prevention of Violence Unit of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Violence Research Centre (VRC) of the Institute of Criminology, University of Campbridge. ( For more on the conference, please visit this link: www.vrc.crim.cam.ac.uk/conference)
While violence in North America and Europe is seen as on the decline, it has remained problematic in low- and middle-income countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Why?Under the theme, “Global Strategies to Reduce Violence by 50% in the Next 30 Years,” 150 world-leading experts in violence prevention from academia, policy, civil society, and philanthropic organizations will discuss ideas, research findings, and case experiences until commonalities between different manifestations of violence are identified. At the end of the conference, a roadmap of strategies on reducing interpersonal violence will be set out which governments and international organizations can adopt or adapt for their use.
Dr. Madrid, an expert in child abuse cases in the Philippines and conceptor of the Child Protection Unit in the country, finds that adult violent behavior has its roots in childhood and adolescence experiences, with the latter being a critical development stage. Her paper, “Adolescence: ACritical Period in Reducing Abuse & Exploitation in Low- and Middle-Income Countries,” will be presented on the morning of September 18 at Keynes Lecture Theater.
Dr. Bernadette J. Madrid is the Director of the UP-PGH Child Protection Unit (CPU) where she is, concurrently, Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics. She is also the Executive Director of the Child Protection Network Foundation, Inc., an NGO that supports the training of Child Protection professionals and the development of Child Protection Units in the Philippines.
There are 70 Child Protection Units across the country right now and reports from the CPUs show that the most number of cases are sexually abused girls aged 13-15 years. The Philippines has the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the whole of Southeast Asia with a 65% rise in the last 10 years. The country also has the youngest age of statutory rape in the world at less than 12 years of age. A review of 12,000 cases in the Philippine General Hospital Child Protection Management Information database on the factors leading to both abuse and risk for re-abuse in the last 14 years consistently came up with 4 factors: poverty, disability, poor parenting, drugs and alcohol. The primary prevention of child abuse is important, not only for the harm this causes at the present time, but also for the harm that may evolve years later when the child is an adult. The results of the Metro Manila ACES Study (Ramiro, Madrid, Brown, 2010)1 showed, for example, that a child who is sexually abused is more likely to engage in early sex, become pregnant as a teen- ager, and to attempt suicide. As an adult, the same child, as a result of the toxic stress induced by the abusive experiences , has increased chances of developing a chronic illness such as hypertension, ischemic heart disease, ulcers, asthma, cancer, just to name a few.
(FMJemena/IPPAO-UPM)
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