ONE in every 100 children in the country is being used to produce child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) for profit, a study has revealed.
In a study conducted by the International Justice Mission (IJM) on the prevalence of online sexual abuse and exploitation of children (OSEC) in the country, it was found that nearly half a million Filipino children, from ages zero to 18, experienced abuse in 2022 alone.
Three out of every 1,000 Filipino adults, most of them parents or relatives, were found to be involved in the sexual abuse and exploitation of children in exchange for money from predators abroad.
Majority of the “clients” were from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Europe and other Western or developed countries.
“Victims were abused from between two months to four years with the average duration of abuse being two years. In addition, the 2020 study found the average age of victims was only 11 years old with the youngest under one year old, which is consistent with ongoing casework,” the IJM said.
The study was conducted in 150 municipalities across the country.
What is more saddening, according to IJM, is that there could be more cases of Osec but it is not being reported due to social and cultural factors in the country, especially when potential witnesses or reporting parties have existing relationships with traffickers.
“Some of them are relatives and neighbors who do not want to meddle in the affairs of others and choose to remain quiet about it,” it said.
Department of Justice (DOJ) Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) Undersecretary-In-Charge Nicholas Ty said the prevalence of this crime would have been significantly higher if not for the interventions made over the past several years by the DOJ, together with the other government agencies and civil society organizations
Philippine National Police (PNP) chief of the Women and Children Protection Group Colonel Portia Manalad cited technological limitations of the authorities as among the challenges in the fight against Osec, which requires them to seek help from private organizations, particularly telecommunication firms.
She said there are certain technologies for the detection of Osec materials.
Angel Redoble, first vice president and chief information security officer of PLDT/ Smart Communications, said they have blocked 700,000 sites containing or carrying Osec activities as well as a billion access requests to such sites.
As of August 2023, data from IJM-supported operations reveals that Philippine authorities have brought 1,181 victims and at-risk individuals to safety and apprehended 359 suspected perpetrators, with at least 202 of them already convicted.
Amid the challenges, in order to strengthen the fight against Osec, the study suggests the implementation of national and local strategies to increase local community reports, holding offenders accountable to establish a stronger deterrent and reducing prevalence, implementation of additional local efforts, championing of survivor experiences on the part of the legislators and to probe the normalization of online sexual exploitation of children for financial gain.
Eric Favila, founder and chief executive officer of AMLakas, which is involved in enhancing prevention of financial crime in the payment industry, said they are monitoring suspicious financial transactions through electronic wallets.
The IJM also urged banks and money service businesses to act with urgency to implement effective transaction monitoring to detect suspicious payments indicative of (OSAEC), enhance due diligence if suspicious exists, expedite suspicious reporting and block payments involving known or suspected offenders, and traffickers.
An April 2023 Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) report revealed that in 2022, a total of 92,200 suspicious transaction reports (STRs) relating to OSAEC were received from financial institutions.
AMLC further reported that they analyzed 182,729 OSAEC-related STRs with an aggregate amount of PhP1.56 billion from mid-2020 to the end of 2022.
Per AMLC, 81 percent of these are incoming foreign remittances, with the US, UK, Australia and Canada being the top sending countries in volume and peso value since 2015.
The IJM said the Philippine government should also enforce and enhance regulations mandating the use of safety-by-design technology design to detect, prevent and disrupt the production and distribution of live-streamed child sexual abuse and other CSEM images and videos at scale. (SunStar Philippines)