Woman gets 2 life terms for child sex trafficking

MANILA, Philippines — A woman who sexually exploited minors, including her own daughter, has been sentenced to two life terms after a Leyte court found her guilty of qualified trafficking, child abuse and subjecting minors to online sexual exploitation.

Washington-based International Justice Mission (IJM) reported that the mother received one life sentence for qualified trafficking and another life sentence for child abuse and was additionally sentenced by an Albuyog Regional Trial Court to a maximum of 17 years in prison for sexually exploiting minors online.

The court also ordered her to pay a total fine of P4.5 million for all three offenses.

Lawyer and IJM Cebu director Lucille Dejito described the conviction as a significant victory for global collaboration, as it resulted from the arrest of Philip Chicoine, a Canadian offender who paid the Filipino trafficker to livestream the abuse of minors.

The prosecution was able to maximize available digital evidence and international cooperation to prove the case, avoiding the trauma of children having to testify before the court, according to Dejito.

One of the trial’s witnesses, Jay Schooley from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, authenticated the referral letter that the RCMP sent to the Philippine National Police (PNP).

The referral led to the investigation and eventual arrest of the Filipino trafficker in 2017.

Another member of the RCMP, Cpl. Jared Clarke, also testified that messages and explicit images were exchanged between Chicoine and the Filipino trafficker.

“The conviction achieved by Prosecutor Junery Bagunas in this case was a big win for child protection. No child had to be put on the witness stand and be re-traumatized. Instead, the prosecution maximized the available digital evidence and tapped international collaboration to prove its case,” Regional Prosecutor Irwin Maraya said.

“This outcome demonstrates the effectiveness of child-protective approaches in prosecuting online child sexual exploitation cases,” Maraya added.

Chicoine was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2017 for paying for the livestreaming of child sexual abuse.

He later pleaded guilty to 40 sexual offenses committed against children and was found to possess more than 10,000 images and videos of child sexual abuse.

He had spent more than $20,000 arranging for the livestreaming of child sexual abuse in the Philippines and Romania.

In November 2017, members of the PNP Women and Children Protection Center-Visayas Field Unit arrested the Filipino trafficker while she was offering to perform sex acts on her own seven-year-old daughter and livestream them from her home in MacArthur, Leyte. Her daughter was rescued during the operation, along with eight other children.