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According to the International Justice Mission, traffickers abused 1 in 100 Filipino children to create new sexual exploitation material in 2022 alone
MANILA, Philippines – An emotional President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the Philippines must do more to fight online sexual abuse and exploitation of children (OSAEC), as the country has long been dubbed 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 prevalent OSAEC still is in the country. Preceding his speech was Charito’s, not her real name, who told her story about surviving exploitation as a child.
“As I was listening to the young lady…I could not help but shed a tear to think [about reliving] the suffering that she went through. And to think how many other children are even — as we’re here, [sitting] in this fancy hotel room, eating our fancy food — continuing to suffer the same fate as she has,” Marcos said.
“And accompanying those tears that I just shed was a deep sense of shame because we have not done enough for the Philippines to now be considered the epicenter of…sexual abuse and exploitation of children. And I leave it to your imagination. And I would imagine in some cases your imagination cannot even begin to fathom what is done to these poor children, to our poor children,” the President added. “We must do more.”
Charito spoke about how, in 2004, when she was 13, she was “trapped” and forced to work in a bar to entertain customers and perform strip dances.
The National Bureau of Investigation eventually rescued her. Ten years after her rescue, her perpetrators were convicted, but remain at large up until present.
She also told the story of her fellow survivor “Joy,” who was made to sit naked in front of cameras as 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 reported,” Charito said.
According to the International Justice Mission (IJM), traffickers abused 1 in 100 Filipino children to create new child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) in 2022, a statistic the President called “appalling” and vowed to stop.
“They live within our midst and several may be the sons, daughters of those people we know. Their smiles…conceal a pain that is our nation’s shame, as the sad reality is that many perpetrators are the victims’ families or relatives, the very people that we expect to care for them,” said Marcos.
New campaign launched
From 2022 to July 2024, the Philippine National Police rescued at least 1,099 survivors of trafficking and OSAEC, and arrested more than 100 suspects. But Marcos noted that this was just a fraction of the culprits who must be apprehended.
One of the topics in the panel discussions centered on how OSAEC thrived in a problematic “cultural” sense of tolerance, where families and communities help cover up the crime, or worse, normalize the crime in vulnerable communities. This leads to a lack of reporting.
In an effort to nip the issue in the bud, the Philippine government during the summit launched the “Bayang Walang Bahid ng OSAEC” campaign, which seeks to educate communities about OSAEC and the importance of reporting it.
Charito said she looked forward to seeing more convictions in OSAEC cases, more education for local officials, and an OSAEC desk in every local government unit.
Despite the Philippines being in Tier 1 of the United States’ Trafficking in Persons report for nine consecutive years, which means it has the minimum standards for fighting human trafficking, the country remained a hotspot for OSAEC. The Philippines was named the world’s top source of online child sexual exploitation content in a 2020 IJM study.
There is also thriving demand for OSAEC. Telecommunications company PLDT, for one, has blocked millions of attempts by subscribers to access CSEM.
The Philippines’ anti-OSAEC measure lapsed into law in July 2022. – Rappler.com
