Hundreds of children detained by the Philippine govt in preparation for Pope's visit

Street children as young as five are being caged in brutal detention centres alongside adult criminals in a cynical drive to smarten up the Philippines capital ahead of a visit by Pope Francis this week.

Hundreds of boys and girls have been rounded up from doorways and roadsides by police and officials and put behind bars in recent weeks to make the poverty-racked city more presentable when Pope Francis arrives tomorrow, a MailOnline investigation has found.

In a blatant abuse of the country's own child protection laws, the terrified children are locked up in filthy detention centres where they sleep on concrete floors and where many of them are beaten or abused by older inmates and adult prisoners and, in some cases, starved and chained to pillars.

There, guiltless children are kept behind bars, made to go to the toilet in buckets and fed leftovers which they eat from the floor. There is no schooling or entertainment for the youngsters who are held sometimes for months before being freed.

Adult convicts are kept in a pen next to separate compounds holding boys and girls and freely pass between the pens at certain times of the day, inmates and regular visitors to the centre told us, while officials either ignore or fail to spot abuse and attacks.

In poignant scenes, Mak-Mak – an abandoned child with no ID – at first seen frightened but then beamed with delight as charity workers told him he was being taken from his caged pen to children's home in the countryside. 'Are there toys there?' was his first question.

'These kids are totally without protection. They have no legal representation. They are just put in jail and left to fend for themselves.'

Pope Francis famously washed the feet of inmates in a youth detention centre in Rome in 2013 but Father Shay, who has run a mission to help children in the Philippines for 40 years, said: 'Sadly, there is no way the Pope will be visiting these detention centres in Manila.

Meanwhile, however, the only prospect of an escape from the hellish conditions behind bars for countless children will come when the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church – shielded from their suffering – flies back to Rome next Monday. (JAN 19th)

Six million people are expected to attend an open air mass conducted by Pope Francis in Manila's Rizal Park on Sunday, which will watched by a global TV audience and officials appear determined to ensure that urchins are hidden from view.

he visit to Manila comes exactly 20 years after St. John Paul II's visit to the country, and there is great excitement to meet the first non-European Pope - seen here blessing a sick child - for more than 1,300 years

Thousands welcomed the Pope to Columbo, Sri Lanka's capital, and similar scenes are expected in Manila

Culled from DAILY MAIL