Authorities push to crack down on online child pornography

MANILA, Philippines – The chairman of the Senate basic education panel on Sunday lobbied authorities to crack down on child pornography online, citing reports of the proliferation of minors selling sexually explicit images or videos of themselves on social media. social.

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian also urged the Department of Education (DepEd) to push forward its child protection program, as crowds of schoolchildren, who had been forced to stay home and study remotely due to the pandemic, were becoming more vulnerable. abuse and exploitation by sexual predators.

In a statement, the senator cited a report from a student sector news portal about the growing trend of minors sending pornographic images “to raise funds for expenses related to distance education.”

Gatchalian said that according to the Filipino student online Tambayan report, many students use certain hashtags on Twitter, including #AlterPH, #AlterPinay and # AlterPhilippines, to make such transactions more accessible to potential buyers in the so-called alter community.

Alter is short for alternative, which refers to the anonymous Twitter profiles that people use to post, share or exchange sexual images.

Gatchalian urged the cybercrime offices of the Department of Justice and the Philippine National Police to intensify the investigation of such activities.

“These students use what they earn to buy gadgets for their siblings and pay Internet bills. A Christmas package, containing a variety of photos and videos that sometimes reveal the vendors’ faces, sells for just P150, ”he said.

At the height of the government lockdown due to COVID-19 from March 1 to May 24 of last year, at least 279,166 cases of sexual exploitation of children online were recorded in Metro Manila, representing an increase of 264 percent. of the 76,561 cases registered in the same period in 2019.

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