The Washington Times interviewed Rev. Shay Cullen of the Missionary Society of St. Columban last week in Geneva about the plight of street children in the Philippines. Excerpts:

Several years ago, we were contacted by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Davao City. They asked us to help them to look into the problem of mainly street children who were being shot dead by death squads. These are a group of men riding around on black motorcycles, all like a team dressed in a kind of a black uniform.

I can't say overall. They do not report. It's covered up. Even in Davao City and surrounding areas, we are looking at 56 [killings] over the last three years. ... They are reckoned to be minors, but we cannot fully confirm that because they don't have birth certificates. ... A rough estimate is something like that. But in other cities, more have been reported in newspapers.

Well, we have visited 37 prisons. The conditions are subhuman — the children are mixed in with the adults, who are criminals. In many cases, they are raped inside jail. As punishment, the females are handed over to prisoners or to guards and are sexually molested and abused. The males are also sexually abused, because they're mixed in. The crowding is unbelievable.

We have just been to Novotas, in Metro Manila, the latest prison visit, and here we have 17 minors mixed in with 33 adults in a room adequate for about 15 people.