SENATOR Leila de Lima urged authorities to intensify their efforts to fight online sexual abuse of children in the Philippines to finally address the aggravating factors and root causes of this problem.

De Lima reiterated the need to review the status of implementation of existing laws on protecting children. She cited the report of the Department of Justice that online sexual exploitation cases targeting and victimizing Filipino children increased in 2021.

The DOJ’s Office of Cybercrime said it received more than 2.8 million reports about online child sexual abuse, more than double the nearly 1.3 million reports in 2020.

The report said that the department investigated 268 cases of online sexual exploitation of children, almost four times the 73 cases it handled in 2020.

“The continuous increase of online sexual abuse targeting minors only emphasizes the need for the government not just to investigate this alarming issue but also to review, assess and expand the implementation of the laws that are supposed to protect the Filipino youth and children,” De Lima said.

“We must take this issue seriously because sexual predators have been taking advantage of the internet and the innocence of children, especially since the pandemic hit, to perform their illegal activities,” she added.