Marcos says PH must do more to stop online child abuse

According to the International Justice Mission, in 2022 alone, traffickers abused 1 in 100 Filipino children to create new material for sexual exploitation

MANILA, Philippines – An emotional President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the Philippines must do more to combat online child sexual abuse and exploitation (OSAEC), as the country has long been seen as the “global epicenter” of the crime.

In a speech at the National Summit Against OSAEC in Makati City on Monday, September 16, Marcos lamented how widespread OSAEC still is in the country. Preceding his speech was Charito’s, not her real name, who shared her story of surviving exploitation as a child.

“As I listened to the young lady… I couldn’t help but shed a tear as I thought (about reliving) the suffering that she went through. And as I thought about how many other children — while we are here, (sitting) in this fancy hotel room, eating our fancy food — are still suffering the same fate as her,” Marcos said.

“And beyond those tears that I just shed, there was a deep sense of shame that we have not done enough to now consider the Philippines as the epicenter of… child sexual abuse and exploitation. And I leave it to your imagination. And I imagine that in some cases your imagination cannot even fathom what is being done to these poor children, to our poor children,” the president added. “We have to do more.”

Charito told how in 2004, when she was 13, she was “imprisoned” and forced to work in a bar entertaining customers and performing stripteases.

The National Bureau of Investigation eventually rescued her. Ten years after her rescue, her perpetrators were convicted, but they remain at large to this day.

She also told the story of her fellow survivor “Joy,” who was forced to sit naked in front of cameras while online sex offenders paid to watch her. Joy endured this abuse for seven years before being rescued along with 13 others.

“It pains me to know that her community knew about the exploitation, even the barangay officials, but no one from the community filed a complaint,” Charito said.

According to the International Justice Mission (IJM), in 2022, human traffickers abused 1 in 100 Filipino children to create new child sexual exploitation material (CSEM). The president called the statistic “shocking” and vowed to put an end to it.

“They live among us and some of them may be the sons, daughters of the people we know. Their smiles… hide a pain that is the shame of our nation, because the sad reality is that many of the perpetrators are the families or relatives of the victims, the people we expect to care for them,” Marcos said.

New campaign launched

From 2022 to July 2024, the Philippine National Police rescued at least 1,099 survivors of human trafficking and OSAEC, and arrested more than 100 suspects. But Marcos noted that this was only a fraction of the perpetrators who needed to be apprehended.

One of the topics in the panel discussions was how OSAEC has thrived in a problematic ‘cultural’ sense of tolerance, where families and communities help to cover up crime, or worse, normalise crime in vulnerable communities. This leads to a lack of reporting.

In an effort to nip the problem in the bud, the Philippine government launched the “Bayang Walang Bahid ng OSAEC” campaign during the summit, which aims to educate communities about OSAEC and the importance of reporting it.

Charito said she looks forward to more convictions in OSAEC cases, more education for local officials and an OSAEC office in every local government unit.

Despite being ranked in Tier 1 of the United States Trafficking in Persons report for nine consecutive years, meaning it meets minimum standards for combating human trafficking, the country has remained a hotspot for OSAEC. The Philippines was named the world’s largest source of online child sexual exploitation content in a 2020 IJM study.

There is also a growing demand for OSAEC. For example, telecommunications company PLDT has blocked millions of attempts by subscribers to access CSEM.

The Philippines’ anti-OSAEC measure has not been in effect since July 2022. – Rappler.com