The Philippines has led the world in child sexual exploitation for a number of years. 2022 is no different.
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| https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/853913/philippines-leading-in-child-sexual-exploitation-says-remulla-after-meeting-un-rapporteur/story/ |
The Philippines is leading in child sexual exploitation, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said on Thursday.
Remulla thus told reporters after he met Mama Fatima Singhateh, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children, who paid him a courtesy call.
Asked about the status of online sexual exploitation in the country, Remulla said, "We’re No. 1 in the world."
"We're number 1 in the world. This should be gone. The Marcos administration is making efforts to stop the Philippines’ status on being the leading country in child sexual exploitation,” Remulla said.
Remulla said he gave Singhateh "an official letter" to tell her what the Philippines was doing to combat child sexual exploitation.
"Actually, we've declared war on this. It's the first thing we did since the inception of the Marcos regime," Remulla said of the government's campaign against child sexual exploitation.
Now, it is true that one of the first acts of President Marcos was to declare a war on child sexual exploitation. But who cares when there has been a war on child sexual exploitation for several years? Is Remulla more concerned about fighting child sexual exploitation or with touting Bongbong Marcos as a savior of the children?
United Nations Special Rapporteur Mama Fatima Singhateh on Thursday bared that the Philippines remained to be a source and place for child trafficking, sale, sexual abuse, and forced marriage and labor, among others.
In a news conference, Singhateh presented the preliminary findings of her 11-day visit to the Philippines.
She said there was a lack of explicit legal provision in the Constitution to penalize the exploitation of children for travel and tourism.
The purpose of the constitution is to delineate how the government functions. There are laws on the books penalizing the exploitation of children in the Philippines and this is later acknowledged in the article.
She said the tourism industry lacked information to prevent sexual exploitation.
The Department of Tourism (DOT) said there's a law to prevent child abuse in the country, especially in the tourist destinations, according to “24 Oras” report on Thursday.
The department said they also have training in the DOT-accredited resorts and hotels to capture the perpetrators.
It added that there is also a hotline to immediately contact hotels and resort personnel.
Singhateh goes on to make several recommendations one of which is to see this problem holistically.
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| https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2022/12/08/2229470/un-expert-urges-philippines-focus-tackling-sexual-exploitation-children-tourism-too |
The UN expert observed that while there are a lot of focus on the online exploitation of children, the attention on matters related to sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism, and through transactional sex “has not been adequate.”
“Sexual abuse and exploitation should be seen holistically,” said Singhateh, who served as The Gambia’s justice minister.
“I’m highlighting sexual abuse and exploitation in the context of tourism and travel, and in transactional sex because I did not hear the government talk about it. If the government is not talking about it, that means interventions that are being used are not focused on that area,” she added.
Why does the Philippines remain number one in the world for child sexual exploitation after all these years? Why do foreigners either travel here for sex or solicit women online to abuse their children on camera? Why do Filipinas sell their babies on Facebook? Why are authorities so inept at stopping these crimes?
A while back I wrote about a case where the authorities knew a woman was running a cybersex den with children yet refused to arrest her because she stopped for a while during the pandemic.
Wednesday’s raid stemmed from an anti-online sexual exploitation operation conducted last 2020, in which the arrested individuals told investigators about the female suspect’s illegal activities, too.
Ibo said they were about to entrap her back then. However, lockdowns and mobility restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic apparently prompted the suspect to halt any online sexual exploitation activities.
That kind of incompetence is shocking. As far as the trafficking of children goes, especially in regards to illegal adoption, the incompetence is even more shocking.
Last year, he said his agency examined about 10 cases of commercial adoption of children. The case numbers have been "steady" in recent years, but that is because the NBI does not have a unit dedicated to tackling the crime.
Aguto said that if there were investigators dedicated to this kind of crime, the case numbers would probably shoot up.
https://philippinefails.blogspot.com/2021/12/why-do-filipina-women-sell-their-babies.html
It is not known exactly how widespread this problem of illegal adoption is because the "NBI does not have a unit dedicated to tackling this crime." If they actually started looking then the number of cases would likely increase exponentially. Amazing.
It is true that sex trafficking operations are routinely busted in the Philippines. Some involve children and others involve adults. But nothing has changed over the six years since the infamous 2016 UNICEF report tagging the Philippines as the number one global source of child pornography.
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| http://www.manilatimes.net/philippines-is-no-1-global-source-of-child-pornography/267148/ |
I have written about online child sexual exploitation several times over the years on this blog. It seems like nothing has changed. I certainly have nothing new to add. Online exploitation of children is a billion dollar family business and there is a culture of silence and impunity that allows it to happen. And God forbid we start discussing other topics such as the global elite and their predilection for the young as testified by the Epstein case. Who knows how deep the rabbit hole goes and what role the Philippines plays in that world? It would be folly to place the blame on poverty. There are plenty of poor folks who do not descend to such depravity as pimping their children.
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