Shielding Filipino children from online sexual predators

A SENATE budget hearing earlier this week refocused attention on the online exploitation and sexual abuse of Filipino children, a social menace that continues to fester.

Senators were shocked to learn from the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC), an attached agency of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), that the Philippines now ranks second, behind India, for online sexual abuse of children.

A CICC official told the hearing that the abuse thrives because “the parents themselves, as well as the neighbors, even the siblings, use children and expose them online to earn money.”

DICT chief Ivan John Uy said the malaise was deeply rooted in poverty, “but primarily, in terms of cybersecurity, we lack the necessary tools in order to identify perpetrators of these crimes and to track them.”

DICT chief Ivan John Uy

The Department of Justice agrees that poverty drives online sex exploitation. Between 2019 and 2022, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, many Filipinos were forced out of work or lost their livelihood. During that period there was a 260-percent spurt in online sexual exploitation cases, the department said.

Other studies bear out the CICC's findings. In their Scale of Harm study, the International Justice Mission (IJM) and the University of Nottingham Rights Lab noted that last year alone, nearly half a million Filipino children were trafficked to produce child sexual exploitation material (CSEM).

The IJM described the scale of abuse as “sickening.” Over half the victims were 12 years old or younger, with the youngest being just a few months old.

“It is crystal clear that digital spaces and internet-connected, camera-enabled devices pose growing opportunities for offenders to sexually abuse children with ease, anonymity and impunity,” said John Tanagho of the IJM's Center to End Online Sexual Exploitation of Children.

The study also found that while online child exploitation cases are widespread, few are reported to the authorities.

The IJM said the fact that online child abuse was a “fast-growing, borderless crime” made it more difficult to suppress.

Offenders based overseas pay as little as £15, or about P1,000, to watch Filipino children sexually abused over encrypted video calls.

The United Kingdom, United States, Australia and Canada are said to be major consumers of livestreamed abuse.

The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), meanwhile, said up to 20 percent of internet-using children in 12 low- and middle-income countries admitted to having experienced online sexual exploitation or abuse in the previous year.

Child sexual abuse and exploitation, Unicef said, is “a global scourge” that must be addressed through “collaboration across sectors and across borders.”

The pushback gained traction in April, when the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) and Unicef signed an agreement of cooperation to support governments in preventing and fighting online child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Among other things, the agreement seeks to improve linkages between law enforcement and social services and other victim service providers “to ensure that victims and survivors receive coordinated and multidisciplinary support throughout the criminal justice process and beyond to support their holistic recovery.”

PLDT Inc. Chief Information Security Officer Angel Redoble, also cites the need for a “global chain of trust” made up of telecommunications companies and internet service providers to shut down websites and domains that spread child sexual abuse.

PLDT has formed its own cybersecurity group tasked to screen for child sexual abuse material, he said.

PLDT's rival, Globe Telecom Inc., has also partnered with the Internet Watch Foundation to fight online exploitation, blocking more than 65,000 sites carrying child sexual abuse.

But the brunt of the fight to protect children must be fought at the community level. The international aid group Terre des Hommes Netherlands is already doing that in Cebu in partnership with the Bidlisiw Foundation, a local human trafficking watchdog.

Under the team-up, school and tourist resort officials are taught how to spot the signs of child sexual exploitation and report them to the authorities.

Law enforcers and frontline service providers are provided digital training on child safeguarding and protection for abused and vulnerable children.

Through collective action, we will be more capable in shielding our children from the clutches of online sexual predators.