EDITORIAL - Epicenter of child slavery

With a new administration coming in, police have started taking children off the streets and enforcing curfew on minors all over the country including Metro Manila. Many of the children are sent into the streets by their parents to beg or sell items such as flower garlands. The police campaign is laudable but it must be sustained instead of being a mere flash in the pan to impress a new chief executive.

A bigger problem, involving the heinous abuse of children, however, is perpetrated behind closed doors. The top official of the United Nations Children’s Fund in the Philippines has described the country as the “epicenter” of the global live-stream child sex abuse trade and the world’s top source of child pornography. UNICEF Philippines’ Lotta Sylwander said parents themselves were often the ones who peddled their children for live sex shows to pedophiles worldwide.

The illicit trade is reportedly facilitated by Filipinos’ proficiency in English, the prevalence of Internet use and an existing network developed for Filipino migrant workers that allows the easy remittance of funds from around the world.

Many of the children are forced to perform several times a day, for about an hour at a time, in front of a webcam, according to UNICEF, which also expressed concern about the prevalence of child sex abuse perpetrated by family members themselves. Of some 7,000 cybercrimes reported every month in the country, about half involved child sex abuse, UNICEF added.

The country has tough laws against domestic violence and sexual abuse of children. As with many other laws, however, implementation leaves much to be desired, and enforcement is weakest when the victims are from poor households.

The cybercrime law continues to evolve, and there must be enough Filipino experts in information and communication technology to help law enforcers go after purveyors of online child porn. But authorities need more resources and strong political will to do their work.

“There are no limits to how cruel and gross this business is,” Sylwander said in an interview in which she described the abuse as tantamount to child slavery.Authorities must waste no time in stopping this evil industry.