| The failure of ISPs to curb online child abuse |
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| © UNICEF Philippines/2021/Pau Villanueva |
| By Fr. Shay Cullen, Founder since 1974 |
| A study in 2022 revealed that two in 10 internet-using children aged 12 to 17 in the Philippines had experienced online sexual abuse in 2021 alone. This is because internet service providers (ISPs) have failed to install blocking software, as demanded by law. Few people would argue nowadays that the sexual abuse and exploitation of children is one of the most heinous crimes that humans are capable of. That awareness came after the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was passed in November 1989. Before then, tolerance, leniency and a lax attitude toward sexual acts with children were the practice in many countries. In 1992, the Philippine Congress, thanks to the lobbying of children’s rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), passed a strict child protection law known as Republic Act (RA) 7610.The general tolerance and leniency toward pedophilia and the silence of the Catholic Church about it have a long history, as was clearly seen in the public response to Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel “Lolita,” about the sexual abuse of a minor that justifies pedophilia. It was considered pornography and even banned in some countries. But in 1958, after the United States Customs Office deemed it unobjectionable, the novel was published and released in the US. There was some controversy over it, but it became an instant bestseller — it sold 100,000 copies in its first three weeks of release — and, as a perceived consequence, the instances of child sexual abuse it described were tolerated. So, too, in the Philippines today. The denial, cover-up and tolerance of authorities and the Church allow child sexual abuse to proliferate. In an inexplicable decision under American colonial rule, the 1935 Penal Code set 12 years old as the age of sexual consent, legitimizing an adult’s sexual acts with a child. Civil society or the Catholic Church did not object to or challenge it.So long as a 12-year-old girl answered “opo” (yes) when asked if she wanted to have sex with an older man, that was considered sufficient to establish her consent. Apparently, it was no crime or grave sin then. But at that time, the Church preached that missing Sunday Mass was a mortal sin if done intentionally, and one could go and burn in hell for missing it for no good reason. But an adult to have sex with a child who was likely forced to say yes was overlooked because it was not a crime in civil law until 2022.The youngest age a girl could get married in the Catholic Church under canon law was 14; for a boy, it’s 16. Philippine civil law maintained those ages until the 1988 Family Code raised it to 18 for both sexes. The Church must follow civil law. Age of consent raised Lawmakers had resisted any demand from children’s rights NGOs to change the age of consent until March 2022, when RA 11648 made any sexual intercourse with a child 16 and younger a serious crime and is automatically considered statutory rape. This law holds that a child 16 and younger cannot consent willingly. Whether the older person knew the age of the child or not is irrelevant. Even if the child said he or she was 18, the act is still a crime. Another law passed in 2022, RA 11596, banned child marriage, stating that it is a crime to perform or participate in any formal or informal union involving at least one person younger than 18. But despite the passage of these laws, child sexual abuse continues to be tolerated, and in some ways has grown even worse. Nowadays, children are sexually abused in their own homes and secretly trafficked to brothels with false ID and forged birth certificates. An even greater danger is the livestreaming of child abuse sex shows over the internet by parents and relatives to earn money and satisfy the lust of foreign pedophiles. The Preda Foundation is dedicated to fighting child abuse in all its forms. Its social workers rescue, heal and empower hundreds of victims of human trafficking and domestic sexual abuse, and many of the children they helped had their abusers convicted in court. In 2024 alone, 27 such abusers went to prison, most of them for life, thanks to the brave and empowered children who testified against them and honest, incorruptible judges. At any given time, there are as many as 55 to 60 girls in the Preda home in Subic, Zambales.These girls were rescued by municipal social workers, some of whom were trained and gained experience at Preda. They are now working in collaboration with the foundation. As many as 15 towns with no care homes for abused children refer them to the Preda home for protection, healing and legal assistance. One report says there have been 200 convictions in the Philippines over a five-year period for online child abuse. This is a very dismal conviction rate when compared with a report by the International Justice Mission (IJM) that says that 500,000 children have been used for producing sexual abuse materials or online sex shows.If there were more undercover policemen posing as foreign customers, they could detect and intercept the parents and relatives offering to sell their children in sex abuse shows. The IJM said the report that “in 2022 alone, nearly half a million Filipino children, or roughly [one] in 100 children, were trafficked to produce child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) for profit.” It also said, “a 2023 report by the Philippine Anti-Money Laundering Council found that US-originating payments triggered the largest number of suspicious financial transaction reports related to online child sexual abuse and exploitation in the Philippines. ”Despite a six-year international project by the multisectoral consortium SaferKidsPH to curb online sexual abuse, there is little to show for the huge expense and effort, besides a statement of intent. Yet, there was no challenge and public debate demanding that the telecommunication corporations install blocking software as demanded by RA 9775 and RA 11930. These demand corporations to detect and block such online child abuse. This is the root of the problem: the non-implementation of these laws and no prosecution of the bosses of the offending corporations.END. |
| * * * * * * * * * *Note: Any original information, stories, or news articles posted on this site authored by the Preda Foundation and Father Shay Cullen may be shared, copied, or reproduced without further permission in support of the truth, freedom of expression, and the right to know. |
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