Child Rights Network (CRN) on Thursday, June 17, said the investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on human rights violations in the Philippines will give justice to 122 children who died during the government’s illegal drugs operations between July 2016 and Dec. 2019.

CRN, the largest organization of children’s rights in the Philippines, expressed hopes that government officials and law enforcement agents who were liable in the killings will finally be brought to justice.

"The repercussions of the anti-illegal drugs campaign go beyond the death count we mentioned,” it said.

“With thousands killed under ‘Oplan Tokhang’ and related operations, this bloody campaign has resulted into a generation of orphans and traumatized children, a generation robbed of loving parents and kin, a generation who will forever remember the brutal manner of death their parents or guardians went through," the CRN said in a statement.

‘Oplan Tokhang’ was implemented by the government in 2016. It involved the house-to-house campaign by the police in search of illegal drugs. The police claimed that suspects died because “nanlaban sila” (they fought back).

As outgoing ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda recommended the investigation into the killings, the CRN expressed hopes that her replacement, Karim Khan, will also prioritize the resolution of the cases.

"We continue to seek justice for all children who have become cannon fodder under the violent anti-illegal drugs campaign," the CRN said.

It said: "The young lives that were taken have names, families, hopes, and dreams. With ICC coming into play, we earnestly hope that these young victims would no longer remain as abstract statistics and that Filipino children’s deaths will finally be given the justice they long deserved."

It pointed out that while the Philippines might have already withdrawn from the Rome Statute, the country remains a state party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Because of this, the government has a legal and moral obligation to promote and protect the human rights of every child, it said.

"Cooperating with an investigation where children’s rights are involved is an integral part of that obligation," CRN stressed.