EDITORIAL - Predators in a pandemic

With most people confined to their homes amid the pandemic, cyberspace has become the principal meeting place. Tech giants are moving to boost capabilities for teleconferencing, chatting online and livestreaming.

Such advances, unfortunately, have also been a boon to cyber criminals. Apart from fraud and identity theft, cases of actual or suspected online sexual exploitation of children or OSEC reportedly spiked nationwide by a whopping 264.63 percent from March 1 to May 24 compared to the same period last year.

The Department of Justice – Office of Cybercrime recorded 279,166 cases of OSEC nationwide as the government began imposing various levels of quarantines or lockdowns. The figure is 202,605 higher than the 76,561 recorded in the same period in 2019.

Authorities are still cleaning up the list of cases to ensure that there is no double reporting of victims or incidents. But there is general agreement that OSEC cases have risen together with increased internet use amid the coronavirus lockdowns.

The country has Republic Act 9775 or the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009. Still, the United Nations Children’s Fund has described the Philippines as the “global epicenter of the live-stream sexual abuse trade,” with one in five Filipino children vulnerable to online sexual exploitation.

In 2017, Unicef also described the Philippines as the top global source of child pornography, mainly due to poverty, English proficiency, access to the internet and smartphones plus the wide availability of money remittance centers. Weak capability to run after perpetrators and to rescue and rehabilitate trafficked children compounded the problem. Groups fighting OSEC are pushing for a comprehensive law to address the problem at every stage of the crime, with internet service providers being compelled to install technology to block or filter out materials involving the sexual exploitation of children.

Advocates note that many children are exploited for OSEC and cyber porn by their own parents or guardians. The quarantine and shutdown of schools have made it difficult for the community to detect signs that a child may be a victim of OSEC at home. Anti-cyber crime units must intensify efforts to protect children from predators as the pandemic opens more opportunities for online sexual exploitation.