Common crime
The livestreaming of child sexual abuse acts on mobile phones connected to the internet is a common crime in the Philippines and elsewhere. Even parents and relatives abuse their own children to earn money from foreigners using low-cost mobile phones. They buy “load” or mobile data from telecommunications companies (telcos) or internet service providers (ISPs) with international connections.
A recent case involved a mother in Angeles City who was contacted by a Dutch pedophile offered money for sex acts with her three children and two nieces. The five children’s ages ranged from one to six.
Their abuse was discovered by Dutch police and led to a local police operation that saved the children. The children were then brought under the care and protection of the Preda Foundation’s children’s home in Olongapo City.
They are now undergoing therapy and enjoy a playful and happy environment, free from the emotional, sexual and psychological abuse they endured. They will be reintegrated with supportive relatives and receive aftercare from the Preda home.
AI-enabled online child abuse is an international crime that is expanding rapidly beyond the control of government. Government agencies like the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) are powerless to police the telcos and make them obey the law.
The country needs a new and more powerful agency led by internet-savvy officials with integrity and dedication who can, without fear or favor, enforce child-protection laws and resist the power of the telcos and ISPs that are allowing children’s abuse online.
The primary legislation governing internet child protection in the Philippines is Republic Act 11930, or the Anti-Online Sexual Abuse or Exploitation of Children and Anti-Child Sexual Abuse or Exploitation Materials Act. The Internet Watch Foundation recently found up to 14,000 child sexual abuse images suspected as AI-generated images on a single site on the dark web. Potential child abusers or predators visit sites like this and develop inclinations to physically and sexually abuse children, as have been discovered in previous cases.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) has reported that in South Korea, research by police discovered a 10-fold increase in AI-instigated sexual crimes against teenagers by fellow teenagers. The NTC apparently reported no child-abusive websites.
Recent large-scale research by Unicef, the End Child Prostitution and Trafficking network, and Interpol under the Disrupting Harm project showed that across 11 countries, at least 1.2 million children reported having had their images manipulated into sexually explicit deepfakes made with AI tools in the past year. In some of these countries, this translates to one in 25 children, or one child in a typical classroom.
These technological developments mean that a child’s body, identity and reputation can be violated remotely and permanently. Furthermore, children can be threatened or blackmailed using images that may be fabricated but appear real and credible, which can haunt them for decades, according to Unicef.
The need for more updated technological tools must be deployed by telcos if they are to obey the law and protect children from such horrific crimes. However, the alleged collusion between the authorities and the telcos has not even resulted in fines for failing to install the needed state-of-the-art, AI-powered software that can detect and delete child sex abuse images and trace their source. Law enforcers can easily trace them, like what their counterparts in the West are doing, and bring the perpetrators to trial.
In the case involving the Dutch police, the abusive mother has pleaded guilty and will spend a long time in jail. Her three children and their two cousins will be cared for by Preda and their supportive relatives.
Only when the country’s leaders commit with other righteous people to protect children against the enablers of online child sexual abuse will this evil end. In the meantime, the work of saving the child victims must go on. (shaycullen@gmail.com/PN)
