Children rescued from an operator of live stream sexual abuse shows play inside a recreation room at the Child Protection Unit, Philippine General Hospital. The Philippines has been a top source of child sexual materials in the world, with the number of live stream child sexual abuse cases increasing.
NEW YORK/MANILA, 7 June 2016: Eight in 10 Filipino children and adolescents are in danger of being sexually abused online or bullied; while five in 10 think friends participate in risky behaviours while using the internet, a new UNICEF-IPSOS Global study shows.
Perils and Possibilities: Growing up online is based on an international opinion poll of more than 10,000 18-year-olds from 25 countries, including the Philippines, which reveals young people’s perspectives on the risks they face growing up in an increasingly connected world.
The Philippines is one of the worst-affected countries in Asia-Pacific for online abuse. It has been a top global source of child sexual abuse materials, also known as child pornography; and is now seeing more and more cases of live stream child sexual abuse. These involve overseas child sex abusers who connect via webcam to an ‘operator’ in the Philippines.
A slum area in Metro Manila, Philippines. Poverty is a key driving factor behind the international trade in live stream child sexual abuse.
Perpetrators pay the operator to arrange sexual abuse of children on camera. In some of these cases, the operator is the child’s own parents. Children abused as part of a webcam ‘show’ receive around PHP150 (USD3) each; but the cost to their health and well-being is much greater. In later life, they are more likely to have mental health problems, not attend or drop out of school, to attempt suicide, and to engage in high-risk behaviours.
“We need to raise awareness and vigilance of this issue, so that parents and others understand that child abuse – in any form – is not just morally wrong, it is also extremely harmful to children’s health and development,” said Lotta Sylwander, UNICEF Representative in the Philippines. “Unfortunately, at the moment the situation is getting worse, not better.”
Before she was rescued by police and placed in a shelter, 8-y/o ‘Lorna’ was forced to perform sexual acts thrice daily in front of her neighbour’s webcam for foreigners to watch.
- Globally there are around 75,000 child predators online, according to Terre des Hommes, many of them trying to contact children in the Philippines.
- In 2015, the Philippines Office of Cybercrime received 12,374 cyber tips from the US-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
- The number of criminal cases of live stream child abuse in the Philippines is rising, from 57 in 2013, to 89 in 2014, and 167 in 2015.
“The internet and mobile phones have revolutionized young people’s access to information, but the poll findings show just how real the risk of online abuse is for girls and boys,” said UNICEF Associate Director of Child Protection, Cornelius Williams. “UNICEF aims to amplify the youth’s voice to help address online violence, exploitation and abuse, and make sure that children can take full advantage of the benefits the internet and mobile phones offer.”
The report finds that more than two-thirds of girls, or 67 per cent, strongly agree they would be worried if they received sexual comments or requests over the internet; this compares to 47 per cent of boys.
Colonel Ivy Castillo heads up the new cybercrime unit at the Philippine National Police. “Most of our leads come from our overseas police counterparts,” she says. However, the unit gets very few local leads. “Filipinos are reluctant to report abuse or file complaints,” she continues. “Some people don’t know that it’s wrong, or are unaware of the penalties.”
A call for action
To tackle the risks children face on the Internet, UNICEF East Asia and the Pacific has partnered with the Child Rights Coalition Asia (CRC Asia) to produce materials by and for children about how to stay safe online. Young people from across the region helped refine the materials to make them relevant for Asian children. These will be distributed online, in schools and through children’s networks.
UNICEF, along with the global WePROTECT alliance, is also calling on national governments to establish coordinated responses between criminal justice systems including law enforcement, and child welfare, education, health and the information communication technology (ICT) sectors, as well as civil society, to better protect children from online sexual abuse and exploitation.
“When young people, governments, families, the ICT sector and communities work together, we are more likely to find the best ways to respond to online sexual abuse and exploitation, and send a strong message that confronting and ending violence against children online – indeed anywhere – is all of our business,” said Williams.
Perils and Possibilities: Growing up online was produced with support from the WePROTECT Global Alliance.
***