Vatican and Unicef speak out against online violence and abuse

By Fr. Shay Cullen, Founder since 1974

At a United Nations high-level meeting in New York, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher of the Vatican said “technology is being used to exacerbate certain forms of abuse and violence,” adding that the gravity of the violence and abuse against women and children extended beyond sexual exploitation and trafficking.

That technology he spoke of is the artificial intelligence (AI)-driven internet, where sexual violence is widespread. A UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) study, titled “Disrupting Harm,” said the Philippines had the highest number of victims of online sexual abuse and exploitation of children among the 13 countries included in the research.

Parents have much to worry about these days, since almost every school-age child has access to a mobile phone and the internet, and that is a great danger to them. Children are very secretive about their personal lives, and most parents cannot monitor what their children are doing on the internet.

The Philippines is a hotspot of online child sexual abuse. Thousands of foreign pedophiles are searching to trap children in their net of abuse and evil, which includes extortion. Pedophiles pay large sums of money to poor families for food and education. When they become dependent on the money, the parents or relatives are persuaded by these pedophiles to perform sexual acts on the children on the internet that can be watched via mobile phones.

Parents say they do it because of poverty, adding that there is no physical contact involved, but this still doesn’t justify their heinous crime. Victims as young as 5 years old do not know what is happening to them or that it is a serious crime against them. They are easily intimidated, as well as violated and psychologically damaged.

When children use the internet, AI-driven search engines can bring them into contact with abusers lurking online. There are the scammers, the abusers who pretend to be teenage boys or girls and befriend unsuspecting children. After days of chatting with and flattering these children, the abusers persuade them to expose themselves sexually. Once they do, abusers record the children or goad them into sending photos of themselves naked or in sexually suggestive poses. Then the so-called friends spring their trap, demand money or sexual favors from the children, and threaten to send the incriminating video or photos to their classmates, parents or teachers, or post them on social media. Unsurprisingly, these children are devastated, but they could tell no one. The extorting abusers can then meet their victims and demand sexual favors.

One case on trial in Cagayan is an example of this. A Catholic priest had lured and groomed a girl to go with him to a hotel, where he raped her and recorded it on video. He then used the video to keep her silent, and repeated the assault. But the girl ultimately told friends about it. The suspect is now on trial.

WIDESPREAD ABUSE

There are millions of victims of sexual assault all over the world. In late 2024, Unicef reported that 370 million girls and women were and would be subjected to child rape or sexual assault before age 18. The UN agency said in a separate report that online child abuse is happening to such an extent because of “lack of adequate safeguards and regulations to match the pace of digital change.”

We can take that to mean that the Philippine government is not implementing the laws mandating telecommunications companies (telcos) and their internet service providers (ISPs) to install blocking software, which is the main way to protect children from online abuse. They are seemingly ignoring these laws. As a result, still images and videos of child sexual abuse still proliferate on the internet, allowing even children to view them.

These minors can watch the sex acts done to the youngsters, which arouses them to imitate what they see and abuse younger children. This has happened to thousands of children over the past several years. One of them was Maria, 12, who was raped several times by a 15-year-old boy who viewed such harmful online material. Maria was so traumatized that she was referred to the Preda Foundation’s home for children for therapy and healing, and to get justice.

Unicef has reported that there are 2 million child victims of online sexual abuse in the Philippines. As mentioned earlier, telcos and ISPs are required by law to install blocking software to prevent child abuse images from being accessed. But evidence of widespread abuse obtained by Unicef and nongovernmental organizations is a clear indication that ISPs do not deploy such AI-driven software. They must be constantly challenged to obey the law.

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) must also be challenged to implement the law. It had issued Memorandum Circular 01-01-2014, which is clearly being ignored. Republic Act (RA) 9775, or the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009 — which this writer helped draft — holds ISPs responsible to make the internet safe. RA 11930, or the Anti-Online Sexual Abuse or Exploitation of Children and Anti-Child Sexual Abuse or Exploitation Materials Act of 2022, strengthened RA 9775.

The responsibility for enforcing these laws is primarily the NTC’s duty. But it appears the agency has been captured by the ISPs and does not dare challenge or penalize these providers that have put themselves above the law. Perhaps, the ISPs consider themselves above President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who expressed shock about how widespread child abuse images are online, bringing shame to the nation.

The impunity of ISPs is the next corruption that must be challenged, as the flood of child sexual images is inundating the minds and emotions of our children, exposing them to abuse and exploitation, and making them potential abusers later on. Young people themselves must rise and demand a safe and abuse-free internet, and the government and telcos must provide it.