human rights

New York - In response to allegations from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) last month that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo would file claims against the New Peoples Army (NPA) and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) for purportedly recruiting child soldiers into their combat ranks while in the United States, a local rights group met with Human Rights Watch (HRW) October 8 to refute the charges, and condemn the scheme as “a tactic of the Arroyo government to sanitize its image to the international human rights community instead.”