The arrest of a young couple in Cordova town last Saturday on charges of trafficking minors came days after an international conference in Cebu was held to combat cyberabuse of children.
With the ubiquitous use of mobile phones and the pervasive influence of the Internet, families struggle to deal with the challenges of a digital world.
The Cordova raid begged the question: how do you protect children from being objects of cyberporn when it is adult relatives who are the ones exploiting them?
In the case of the Cordova couple, 18-year-old mother Jaimie said she took videos of her niece because she had to buy milk for her one-year-old son.
Poverty can never justify a grownup’s exploitation of a minor this way.
It’s a familiar story now in Cordova town in Mactan island. How many raids and rescues have been conducted in that seaside town since 2008, uncovering patterns of cyberporn and family abuse in the privacy of their own homes.
The NBI’s raid surfaced a new twist.
The past raids netted web cameras and PCs at home.
The teenage mother was using a smartphone to make a video of her 10-year-old niece posing naked and performing lewd moves for pedophiles in the United States to watch online.
All for US$60.
Using smartphones to record nudity isn’t new. They’re the stuff of viral sex scandals that involve anyone from students to celebrities.
But their use makes it a harder for law enforcement agencies to crack down on trafficking.
The operators are mobile, and can easily move about instead of being stationery with laptops and personal computers.
The bad news for cybercrime principals is that online customers in the U.S. are being monitored and can be traced.
The US Department of Homeland Security did just that and traced the lurid transaction all the way to Cordova town and Jaime’s mobile phone.
That in itself should be a warning to perpetrators of mistakenly think that lack of physical contact of pedophiles with children makes the exploitation less harmful.
Cordova remains a hotspot of cybercrime, a source of shame for Cebu.
We have to ask again, what are authorities in the Cordova municipal government, and community leaders there doing to stop this serial abuse and further perversion of family values?
Cordova Mayor Adelino Sitoy’s explanation that municipal resources are limited is not good enough. Cordova is small enough for residents to know easily what happens in their own neighborhood. A tougher stance on cyberpornography is needed.