BACOLOD CITY (MindaNews / 28 Oct) — Watch out when you have neighbors whose lifestyles suddenly level up, and you know that none among them is working abroad.
According to Rebelander S. Basilan, who leads the campaigns and local media engagement of the International Justice Mission Philippines (IJM Philippines), this is among of the red flags that your neighbor might be involved in child trafficking, the kind that uses online platforms to profit from exploiting children sexually.
The “inexplicable drastic change of lifestyle,” Basilan said during the “Reclaiming Lives: Breaking the Human Trafficking Cycle” forum here last month organized by the US Embassy, is usually accompanied by the neighbors’ “frequently going to money service centers” and “bringing in modern appliances inside their homes.”
“Another [red flag] is when people see children frequenting a particular house … just going there and going out late at night,” he added.
But even if people in the community are aware of the “telltale signs,” rarely would neighbors report their suspicion to authorities, Basilan lamented. “We are still working to get people in the communities to report,” he added.
He stressed that while it is common among Filipinos “not [to meddle] in other people’s affairs … this is something that the community shouldn’t be silent about.”
Basilan pointed out that the Philippines has made headway in terms of combatting the traditional form of child sexual exploitation, that is, the commercial sex trafficking of children.
“But then just as we reduce the prevalence of commercial sex trafficking of minors in the Philippines, another crime emerged,” he noted, referring to the move of traffickers to the online platform.
Basilan pointed out that there are a few factors in the Philippines that have helped usher in this new version of sexual exploitation of children — the Filipinos’ proficiency in English, the low cost internet that are fast enough to do live streaming, the widespread use of smartphones, and the availability of money transfer services
Offenders from abroad can easily communicate to Filipinos, a simple smartphone can transmit a livestream of child abuse, aided by “online payments with little detection,” he added.
Thus, online child sexual exploitation are “perpetrated in private homes, no need to set up a shop or a bar,” Basilan said.
He added that a study they conducted back in 2020 showed that Filipinos being victimized in online sexual abuse have become younger, the median age being only 11 years old.
The offenders, he said, are typically from the United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, and other European countries, who would pay a local trafficker in the Philippines who has access to children.
“They could be their own children or these children could be their neighbor’s children. And then this offender from abroad would pay to direct the kind of sexual abuse to be inflicted,” Basilan said.
Another study his group conducted in 2022 “found out that nearly half a million Filipino children were trafficked to produce new sexual exploitation material in 2022,” and that 250,000 Filipino adults were “doing the abuse and trafficking.”
“What makes this a really heartbreaking exploitation is that very young children are involved, and then 41 percent are actually biological parents doing the abuse on their own child,” Basilan said. Forty-two percent of the perpetrators are other relatives — aunts, uncles, or even sisters, “exploiting their own blood relative,” he added. (Bobby Timonera / MindaNews)
