| Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
In the Philippines and many other countries, children are under attack by pedophiles and child abusers who use uncontrolled social media platforms connected to the Internet by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) owned by telecommunication corporations (telecoms). The children are groomed, seduced, lured, and entrapped. Many are sexually abused on live shows by video streaming to international customers for money done through the telecoms’ ISP servers. The child abusers are sometimes their own parents.
Many good parents are worried sick and helpless to protect their children from these criminals that are enabled by the telecoms and social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, X, and others. Predators or their peer groups lure children to watch child sexual abuse images online on a mobile phone connected to the internet via the telecoms. As a result, many 10- and 12-year-old boys have and are sexually abusing girls as young as six years old.
Exposure to child sexual abuse materials has a deep, damaging psychological effect on the personality of the viewer, especially children. This generation is suffering the consequences, with millions of children suffering abuse. The Internet is still in its “Wild West” period of history.
Change may be on the way. It is the first time a CEO of a huge media platform like Telegram has been arrested and charged. French police and Interpol are investigating Telegram for enabling crimes of child abuse and exploitation, human trafficking, illegal drug sales, fraud, hate speech, financial crimes, and illegal weapons sales. Telegram’s billionaire owner and CEO is Pavel Durov, 39, a Russian national with dual French and United Arab Emirates citizenship. He was arrested in France on 24 August this year. He is charged with aiding and abetting acts of various crimes listed above on his platform, which has about 800 million users. It has end-to-end encryption that enables criminals using Telegram to carry out illegal activities without interception by law enforcement. It is open to all and used by extremist groups to foment political unrest and riots since it allows 200,000 people in a single chat room. A single message can reach a huge audience. It was used to spread racist hate recently in the UK. If found guilty, Pavel could face ten years in prison.
The worst crimes over the platforms and through the telecom enablers of the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the Philippines and elsewhere are those that allow child abuse images to be shared and transmitted without filtering and control, just like Telegram does. This is a challenge for PLDT, Globe, and Dito CEOs to obey RA 11930 or not travel to the EU strictly.
Through the servers of the telecoms, criminals connect to platforms like Facebook, Telegram, etc., where predators posing as teenage boyfriends groom and trick children into sharing their nude photos online. Then, the victims are blackmailed (sex-tortion). Their childhood lives are destroyed by the threats of posting pictures on social media and sent to schoolmates and parents if they don’t pay the extortionist or send them more explicit images. In the Philippines, some children are forced to have sex with the abusive blackmailer.
The outrageous case now in court against a Catholic priest in Tuguegarao City, Cagayan province, is still ongoing. He allegedly videotaped his acts of sexual abuse of a minor over whom he had moral ascendancy. He blackmailed her into continuing to have sex with him until she broke down and begged others to help her escape his control over her. He admitted the several sexual assaults but claims in defense that she gave consent, which she repeatedly and vehemently denies. The suspect is in jail, and the trial has enormous international interest and could last until 2026.
“The prevalent rate of sexual abuse suffered by girls is 10.7 % to 17.4%, and the rate for boys is 3.6% to 17.4%. The traumatic impact of sexual abuse on a child is life-long, and it never goes away and can cause life-long trauma and dysfunctional lives.”
According to the Women and Children Protection Unit, research shows that from 2021 to 2022, a shocking 72 percent of all child abuse cases were committed by sexual assault, many initiated by grooming over the internet. As many as 6,000 abuse cases were recorded in 2021, and in 2022, more than 6,600 cases were recorded. Other research shows one in every three girls has suffered abuse at least once, and one in every five boys.
The prevalent rate of sexual abuse suffered by girls is 10.7% to 17.4%, and the rate for boys is 3.6% to 17.4%. The traumatic impact of sexual abuse on a child is life-long, and it never goes away and can cause life-long trauma and dysfunctional lives.
In the Philippines, there are no government therapeutic treatment and recovery homes for sexually abused children. Proposed legislation encourages the establishment of such treatment centers. The victims are left to suffer and endure the experience all their lives. The Preda Foundation, however, offers a healing therapeutic program with Emotional Release Therapy that enables the child victim to release all the hurt, pain, and anger and be free of it forever. They are empowered and seek justice, bring their abuser to court, and win twenty convictions a year.
The arrest and investigation of Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram, for allowing crimes to be conducted over his platform is a legal first and is a huge legal shock to all CEOs of the telecoms and social media platforms. Their social media platforms and ISPs enable online crimes against children.
The telecom CEOs have failed to install effective AI-powered blocking software to stop illegal content from passing through their servers and posting on social media platforms.
Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, said the filing of charges leads to the “potential criminal liability of executives at this messaging platform.” If this is true for Telegram, it is also true for other telecom CEOs and social media executives. The strict enforcement of the rule of law is essential to curb these horrific daily crimes of abuse of vulnerable children.
Republic Act 11930, passed on July 30, 2022, is an act punishing online sexual abuse and exploitation of children, penalizing the production, distribution, possession, and access of child sexual abuse or exploitation materials. The CEOs of telecommunication corporations allegedly violate this, allowing access to abusive materials with impunity. Philippine prosecutors need to find the courage and legal know-how to follow the lead of the French prosecutors and go after these enablers of child sexual abuse online. It could be a child in your family who will be the next victim of online sexual abuse. We must act now to curb it.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Shay Cullen is a Missionary priest from Ireland, a member of the Missionary Society of St. Columban, and the Founder and President of Preda Foundation since 1975.
This column was first published in The Sunday Times (www.manilatimes.net) on September 1, 2024. Reposted with permission of the author.