TO HOLD perpetrators accountable and address the root cause of child abuse in the Philippines, Senator Leila de Lima is pushing for a full congressional investigation on the surge of online sexual exploitation of children amid the Covid19 pandemic.

In filing Senate Resolution 745, De Lima said that the State must recognize that while health protocols are necessary, protective measures that will provide essential services to uphold the rights of the youth must not be sidelined.

“These sexual predators have thrived in this pandemic for far too long at the expense of the innocence and purity of our children,” De Lima said.

“A full investigation must thus be carried out where all those who contribute to the growing trend including online platforms that allow them to proliferate or condone their proliferation by acquiescence, are prosecuted,” she added.

The Philippines has been tagged as the global epicenter of livestream sexual trafficking of children based on data from the US-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Philippine Internet Crimes Against Children Center.

Tech companies also reported that more than 1.29 million images and videos of child pornography came from the Philippines in 2020, which was more than triple the number in 2019.

From March 1 to May 24, 2020, the Department of Justice reported that there were 202,605 cases of OSEC — a 265 percent increase compared with the same period the previous year.

In March, Mama Fatima Singhateh, Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, said the Covid19 pandemic had caused a socio-economic crisis that worsened the existing stark inequalities of vulnerable children which resulted in the amplification of their risks to sale, trafficking, sexual exploitation and abuse.

De Lima underscored the need to enhance the government’s research and online monitoring systems and allocate more resources to combat OSEC.

“While individuals who engage and facilitate such illegal acts should rightly be punished, structural issues of poverty, inequality and inadequate government support should also be considered in the bigger picture that needs to be addressed,” she said.

“Now is the time for us to step up and be the defenders that the children of this nation desperately need. We are bound by our duty to create an environment for them that is safe, where their innocence is protected and their rights are upheld,” she added.