The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has warned online groups and channels that prey on children for sexual abuse and exploitation.
It urged the public to be proactive against these groups and social media users by reporting suspicious pages and other virtual channels that victimize children.
“It takes a community to raise a child, all the more with the uncertainties of growing up in a tech-savvy generation,” the CHR said through Executive Director and Spokesperson Jacqueline Ann de Guia, a lawyer.
“CHR enjoins all to share the responsibility of embodying the role of digital guardians to make online spaces inclusive and safe for all — most especially for the vulnerable, most especially for children,” De Guia stressed.
The CHR shared the reports uncovered by Sen. Risa N. Hontiveros that showed the groups proliferating on various social media platforms.
It said these groups openly engage in digital sexual abuse and exploitation of children and then advertise, sell, and trade photos and videos of minors. In fact, the volume of these photos and videos are so large that it requires the services of a cloud storage
The CHR, as the country’s Gender Ombud, strongly denounces the existence of online spaces that perpetuates and promotes the exploitation of children,” De Guia said.
“We reiterate that this is a heinous crime that tramples over the rights of minors, and causes lifelong consequences to victims and their families,” she stressed
the proposed law “will require active responsibility from media platforms and internet service providers to take down and delete illegal contents related to the abuse and trafficking of minors,” she added.
It will also help equip the CHR with a “stronger legal aegis” to protect the Filipino youth from child abusers and predators, she noted.
I hope this goes with adults too who are being forced and does not want to be exploited as everyone has the right to be employed. Or people behind should be watched as they also cause stress, for women to get distressed, prove something that they cannot do a decent job or worst they want to prove that a person is psychologically incapacitated even though he/she did a lot of good things or has worked enough.