THE Department of Justice on Monday said online sexual exploitation of children from March to May this year, during the Luzon-wide lockdown imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19, increased by 264 percent compared to the same period last year.
Citing data from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Cyber Tipline Report, an international NGO working to address online-related cases involving children, the DOJ said there were 279,166 reports of online sexual exploitation of children from March 1 to May 24 compared to 76,561 last year.
Internet usage on cyber-related crimes such as phishing and email scams also increased during the same period.
The DOJ, however, said the number could be bloated or were not all cases of sexual exploitation cases due to several factors, namely, “misreporting of materials, identical materials or cases and even nude photos of children posted by their relatives in good faith.”
The DOJ said the report will still be assessed by its Office of Cybercrime before it is endorsed to the NBI-Anti-Human Trafficking Division and the PNP Women and Children’s Center for further investigation.
Data requested by the DOJ Office of Cybercrime from the Philippine Internet Crimes Against Children Center, a collaboration between local and international law enforcement agencies against internet-related crimes involving children, showed that 10 operations were conducted and 34 children rescued from March 15 to May 21 this year.
Two cases are currently on trial while four were filed before the prosecution offices in Taguig city, Caloocan city, Angeles city in Pampanga and Butuan city.
DOJ Undersecretary Markk Perete called on Internet Service Providers to comply with the law requiring them to install technology that will block or filter out materials that exploit children.
“They know that such a legal obligation is automatically read into their franchises or permit to operate. And they realize, more than anyone, that without such technology, this trend of victimization of children who are among the most vulnerable among us will remain unabated,” Perete said.
He added the DOJ is in constant dialogue with social media companies like Facebook and Twitter, especially when it comes to processing requests for retrieval or preservation of data for purposes of managing evidence for eventual prosecution.
“But our dialogue with the internet service providers is towards preventive action through the installation of filtering or blocking technology,” he added.
The DOJ earlier said it is working with Facebook to obtain information on several pages that allegedly promote sexual exploitation of children online.
