A 22-year-old pregnant mother (in red dress) is arrested for human trafficking in Cebu City.
CEBU CITY, Philippines – Police arrested a pregnant woman after she was caught in the act of offering sexual online predators to livestream videos of her minor daughter, and her two sisters.
The 22-year-old mother was arrested by operatives from the Women and Children Protection Center – Visayas Field Unit (WCPC – VFU) in her house in Cebu City on Wednesday afternoon, April 10.
The 43-year-old mother of the pregnant suspect was also arrested for claiming the money sent through a money remittance firm by foreign pedophiles, said a statement from the International Justice Mission (IJM).
Those rescued were the 22-year-old mother’s six-year-old daughter, and her two younger sisters, whose ages are 18 and 21 years old.
The arrest of the mother followed last month’s raids in Lapu-Lapu and Cebu cities where five persons were arrested for using 11 minors, one of them a two-year-old child, in cyberpornography.
Read more: 5 cyberporn traffickers arrested, 11 minors rescued in Cebu
According to the IJM, the 22-year-old mother, violated the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act or Republic Act (RA) No. 9208 (as amended by RA 10364), which comes with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment and a fine of P2 million to P5 million.
The IJM also said that typical online sexual exploitation of children offenses also violate RA 10175 (Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012) and RA 9775 (Anti‐Child Pornography Act of 2009).
The latest operation was also conducted together with IJM, the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT)-7, the Women and Children Protection Desk (WCPD) and Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) of the Cebu City Police Office, and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Central Visayas.
IJM said the operation stemmed from a case referral in the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA) through the Advanced Investigative Workshop (AIW).
“The AIW is presented by IJM, with funding from the US Department of State, in partnership with Australian Federal Police, National Police of the Netherlands, UK National Crime Agency, US Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Queensland Police Service, and with additional support from Western Union, PLDT, Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, and Interpol,” said IJM in a statement./dbs