EDITORIAL - War against online exploitation of children

According to different sources, online exploitation of children is on the rise in the Philippines.

“It’s up by over 280%. Why? Because it’s easy to do,” Special Envoy to the United Nations Monica “Nikki” Prieto-Teodoro said during a press conference of the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking in Malacañang.

In response, the Philippine government has declared a war against online abuse of children.

“We are declaring a war on this,” said Justice Secretary Crispin Remulla, “we are the favorite place of these perverts.”

It is easy to understand why foreign sexual deviants readily find a huge market of child porn here in the Philippines, and why many people here choose to engage in it. There are many children who can be persuaded or tricked into this nefarious business without their knowing it. It is easy to set up a system of broadcast, and payment can be easily made through money exchange branches, which are a dime a dozen in our islands.

The fact that many such operations are also done in shanties and quiet neighborhoods makes it easy for them to escape detection by authorities. Last but definitely not least is the sad fact that some parents are more than willing to sell children online, even their very own, reasoning that as long as customers cannot touch the children it is not a form of abuse.

No other crime can be more deplorable than exploiting children for sexual purposes. Yes it is true that criminal syndicates regularly use them to run drugs, steal, or beg in the streets, but unless harm comes to them from doing so this doesn’t really do damage to their psyche in the same way sexual abuse does.

When children are forced to perform certain acts for an online audience this takes away their dignity and innocence. It affects and traumatizes them in ways that cannot always be seen, even years after the experience.

We want to see this war against sexual exploitation of children pursed with the same vigor as the war against drugs. But, of course, instead of dead bodies we want to see prosecutions and convictions.