Nearly half a million children in the Philippines are being coerced into producing sexual content for paying customers, most of them from the United States. American buyers sent over $7 million to the Philippines for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) content between 2020 and 2022, according to a CNN investigation.
And while Western men may be watching the child abuse, police in the Philippines say that it is mostly female family members who are offering up their victims.
And while Western men may be watching the child abuse, police in the Philippines say that it is mostly female family members who are offering up their victims. The Southeast Asian archipelagic nation, with a population of over 117 million, has become a global hotspot for the financially motivated development of livestreamed child sexual exploitation– one of the fastest-growing crimes online. A non-profit that protects people in poverty against violence, one in 100 Filipino children are trafficked to produce such content, according to a 2023 report from the International Justice Mission (IJM). Of the 50 women who were arrested last year for sexually abusing and exploiting children online, 32 were the victims’ mothers, CNN reported, citing the Philippine National Police data.
“The only reason they’re abusing a child and livestreaming it is because someone in the US is willing to pay for that abuse,” John Tanagho, executive director of IJM’s Centre to End Online Sexual Exploitation of Children, told the American publication.
To keep the family afloat, her adoptive older sister, who has been doing sex work online for some time, asked Kate to take over a few of her clients she was too busy to see. Now 14, Isa lives with her cousins in a shelter after being rescued from their aunties who were livestreaming their abuse.
Soon, two of her neighbours, who were in a similar line of work, would borrow Kate occasionally when their clients requested someone younger, she told the publication. Isa, another victim, was told that some victims would say sorry to her after the abuse and seek mercy from God.
