EXCLUSIVE - Children CAGED to keep the streets clean for the Pope: Police round up orphans and chain them in filth during pontiff's visit to Philippines
- *Street children in Manila are being rounded up before the Pope's arrival
- *Officials claim it is to stop gangs of beggars targeting the Pope
- *But critics say it is a cynical move breaching the children's human rights
- *MailOnline investigation finds horrendous conditions at the centres
- *Children forced to sleep on floors and kept with adults who beat them
- *Some children have been starved and chained to pillars in the centres
- *One child rounded up 59 times - yet he is still living on the streets
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.
