Tagbilaran City (13 October) -- TWO months after the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act (JJWA) takes effect, Bohol and its 47 towns still do not have a youth detention and rehabilitation center as mandated by the new law.

The center is a half-way house for the youthful offenders now exempted from criminal liability and banned from joining adult rehabilitation centers.

Absent that, where do young victims go when authorities accost them in commission of a crime and turns them over to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) who also send children who get in conflict with the law to youth homes while with diversion activities?

Sangguniang Panlalawigan Chairman for Committee on Women and Children Godofreda Tirol said she would ask Bool officials to work for the immediate establishment of the youth home instead of pursuing with the planned Ubay extension of the Bohol Crisis and Intervention Center (BCIC).

“Actually, the BCIC wanted to expand as they plan to implement the Ubay extension center. But with the urgent need for a center or home for the CICL, I would want to use the P1.5M funds for the extension to build the much needed youth home,” the province’s top child advocate legislator said.

Right now, Bohol CICL numbering 164 of them have congested a DSWD managed rehabilitation center in Argao, making it virtually impossible for parents to get a corollary counseling to facilitate the child’s rejoining the society.

A documentary, which BM Trol shared to radio listeners bare that the painful reality that young criminals have pointed to their parents lack of attention and care as the culprits behind their transgressions.

Victims as they are to be seen now, these people deserve to be treated fairly to be productive when the could rejoin society, she pressed meaning the children offenders.

The immediate adoption of the Juvenile Justice Welfare Act (JJWA) or Republic Act 9344 puts over the Local Government Unit’s shoulders the responsibility to take into their care the children-in-conflict with the law (CICL), through an integrated program of intervention, mediation and diversion while adopted in Youth Homes.

Short of saying that LGUS are liable for failing to institute the reforms in restorative justice, social workers now say that not one of the 47 towns in Bohol has set up a center for the purpose.

Reasoning out for the new law, legislators said that the jails offer no hope and inspiration to the kids who have brushed with the law, making their lives as miserable.

While the youth homes may also be built and established by private and non-government organizations licensed and accredited by the DSWD, in consultation with the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Committee, Tirol believes that a Bohol operated house runs in support of the Provincial Children’s Code.