Child Abuse over the Internet

 

They are the two latest arrivals at the Preda Foundation’s beautiful home for exploited children set in the countryside surrounded by wooded hills beside a small stream. The children are Pedro, 12, and Angelica, 7, victims of online sexual abuse perpetrated by the uncle with the knowledge of their parents. They are now rescued and are happily playing with toys and recovering from the abuse. 

 

They were rescued from an abusive uncle who sexually abused them. He made a video whereby he put his cell phone into his briefs and blindfolded the children and told them to look for it. He videotaped the sexual abuse that followed and uploaded it on YouTube. He was detected and the Philippine National Police Women and Children Protection Center (PNP-WCPC) of Region 4A tracked him down and arrested him.

 

A week previously, three more child victims of cyber sexual abuse were rescued also through the intervention of the International Justice Mission (IJM) together with the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the PNP-WCPC. The children were brought by government social workers to the Preda home. The government has no more capacity for the victims and has no commitment to financially support them at the Preda home. They had been sexually abused by their own step-mother in online exposure to Australian pedophiles over the Philippine internet service providers either PLDT/Smart or Globe when arrested. These companies are violating Philippine law by not blocking child pornography and allowing live streaming of child sexual abuse. Soon, there may be international sanctions against them if they don’t obey Philippine and international laws to protect children online.

 

The Philippines is a global hot spot of child sexual abuse online. It is growing more severe with the Coronavirus lock-down and restricted international travel. Many more foreign pedophiles are seeking sexual gratification by having children abused live online while they watch. Parents and relatives are the perpetrators and the ISPs that enable it. 

 

The frequency and number of reported incidents of online sexual child abuse has exploded. The US-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which operates the Cyber Tipline Report (CTR), has a hotline for cases of online exploitation of children and has recorded 279,166 reports from March 1 to May 24, 2020, according to the Philippine Department of Justice. The number is greater by 264.63 percent or by 202,605 incidents in comparison to the figures recorded at this time last 2019. Then there were 76,561 reports of online sexual abuse of small children. This a shocking and disgusting figure of this heinous crime. The NCMEC is a US private non-government agency funded by the US government.

 

Another study led by the International Justice Mission (IJM) shows that Philippine internet-based child sexual abuse had tripled in the past three years. The study showed that the number of Philippine IP accounts that were used for child sexual exploitation online increased from about 23,333 in 2014 to the whopping total of 81,723 by 2017. So over a three year period, the increase in the number of Internet IP addresses used that shared images and acts of sexual abuse of children increased from 43 per 10,000 IP addresses to 149 per 10,000 IP addresses- a massive and shocking increase in the child sexual abuse of Filipino children.

 

This evil inclination of the pedophiles and their enablers that is damaging thousands of children shows a serious failure of irresponsible government officials to implement existing laws to protect the nation’s children. The enablers that make it possible are the internet server providers such as PLDT/Smart and Globe Telecommunications. Soon, a new player DITO Telecommunity, will be a provider of access to the internet.

 

The ever vigilant and straight-talking man of action, President Rodrigo Duterte, intolerant of child sexual abuse, must use all his presidential power to protect the children and get the National Telecommunication Commission, headed by Commissioner Gamaliel A. Cordoba and Deputy Commissioner Delilah F. Delesto to explain why the Electronic and Internet Service Providers such as PLDT/Smart and Globe have not installed detection software to block the uploading and downloading of child pornography and online live-streaming of the sexual abuse of children as provided by law.

 

The NTC was so quick to issue a “Cease and Desist Order” against ABS-CBN for no fault other than the non-renewal of its franchise but how much more important is the protection of little children, some three-year olds from online sexual abuse  about which the NTC appears to do nothing,  favoring PLDT and Globe? These powerful Internet Servers PLDT headed by Manuel V. Pangilinan and Globe headed by Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala must answer for the child abuse that is happening over their internet servers. Have they “captured” the regulators at the NTC and have an arrangement NOT to implement the clear provisions of the law? Would they lose the revenue of more than 82,000 or even 100,000 paying customers perhaps? 

 

Republic Act 9557, under Section 9, says: “The duties of Internet Server Providers (ISP) to monitor the content passing through their servers notify the police of illegal content and provide the authorities the particulars of users who gained or attempted to gain access to an Internet address which contains any form of child pornography.  All ISPs shall install available technology, program or software to ensure access to or transmittal of any form of child pornography will be blocked or filtered.” (See the complete law at   www.preda.org). The Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, Republic Act No. 10175 bans cybersex and child pornography, among other things.

 

What appears to be collusion between government agencies and the telecommunications companies enables 24/7 the access to horrific images of children being tortured, raped and abused. The pernicious and evil abuse of online streaming of children being sexually abused must be stopped by the NTC and the ISPs. Can President Duterte be the one man that can do it? Who are the worst criminals? They who do it? They who order and pay for it? Or those in the NTC and ISPs who enable it to happen? All three must be held to account and face the sanctions of the just laws.  

The Bright and the Dark Internet

We all love being connected to the internet and it is a wonderful technology for communicating, providing information and entertainment and keeping people connected. Commerce and business is totally dependent on it what with e-mail, conferencing, communication, document transmission in which it is essential and has saved countless number of trees with the reduction in the use of paper.

Today, it brings us live streaming of news, movies, songs and shows. Hollywood and the cinemas will soon be left behind. Traditional mainstream news channels and radio are competing with web-based 24-hours independently produced news streams coming over the internet.

    

Then there is the misuse of the internet to spread fake news and targeted slanted messages influence voters and hijack the democratic process. The use of apps on Facebook to gather personal data and its questionable use by Cambridge Analytica to interfere in the political process and influence the outcome of elections is under investigation. Abuse of data is widespread.

The good and useful technology of the Internet is used for crime, robbery, exploitation and abuse. Cybercrime is a fast growing industry and billions have been lost through hacking of bank accounts, blackmail, and fraud. Jenny and her four teenage friends living in a rural village not far from a big city were offered jobs in hotels and restaurants but they ended up having debts to their trafficker and soon were forced to perform sex acts before a live internet-connected camera for paying customers. They were instructed to shave off all body hair and to look even younger than their real ages of 14 and 15 years. They were victims of live-streaming child pornography. They changed and came to hate themselves and had a very low self-esteem. They despaired of ever paying their debts and escaping to go home and back to school.

They were mercifully rescued in a police operation and were brought to the Preda Foundation Home for Girls where they recovered and regained trust and dignity and overcame the trauma. But thousands of minors don’t get saved and their life is a misery of exploitation and abuse. Local and foreign customers who view them online travel to meet and sexually assault them. International sex tourism is fueled and promoted by child pornography and cyber-sex shows.

The worst form of internet abuse must be the exploiter grooming youth and children on chat forums posing as a new boyfriend or girlfriend. The exploiters persuade the victims to expose themselves and perform a sex act on live camera and they record it. They then blackmail the youth by threatening  to post the images on the internet and send them to their parents or friends.  It has led to many suicides, how many we don’t know, but the rate of youth suicides has increased dramatically in recent years. Teenagers have to be protected, educated and warned of this kind of crime that targets them.

In a study by the World Health Organization (WHO), it said that “in the 90 countries (areas) studied, suicide was the fourth leading cause of death among young males and the third for young females. Of the 132,423 deaths of young people in the 90 countries, suicide accounted for 9.1 percent.”

According to the WHO suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-29 year olds globally. These are shocking statistics and the abuse of the internet for crime maybe the cause of the increase in suicides. These criminals cut short the lives of thousands of young people.

     

Another terrible crime perpetrated over the internet is child pornography. This has grown hugely and is one serious contributing cause of the growing number of children being sexually assaulted. It is a serious crime in itself in almost every country. In the Philippines under the anti-child pornography law, the making and/or distribution of child pornography carries up to twenty years in prison. The possession of illegal images by individuals on their computers or mobile phones carries a heavy penalty and a huge fine. Weak implementation of the law is a problem and child pornography is common.

The anti-child pornography law known as Republic Act 9775 imposes these penalties. The law was first proposed and lobbied to Senator Jamby Madrigal by this column writer and became law in 2009. It is a unique law since it orders that the big corporations that make internet connections possible through their computers (the Internet Server Providers or ISPs) supervised by the National Telecommunications Commission install software that identifies, blocks and filters out child pornography.  

Section 9 of the law states that “all ISPs shall install available technology, program or software to ensure that access to or transmittal of any form of child pornography will be blocked or filtered. An ISP who shall knowingly, willfully and intentionally violate this provision shall be subject to the penalty provided under Section 15(k) of this Act. The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) shall promulgate within ninety (90) days from the effectivity of this Act the necessary rules and regulations for the implementation of this provision which shall include, among others, the installation of filtering software that will block access to or transmission of any form of the child pornography.”

However it seems that this law is not being respected and implemented. Child pornography and cyber sex crimes in the Philippines are rampant, widespread and growing. Thousands of children are being sexually abused and photographed and their images are sold locally and abroad. This is the worst crime of all and the powerful allow it with impunity. We need to stand against it and work to protect children and bring the abusers and enablers to justice.