CWC decries sale of prurient videos of children 

INQUIRER FILES

The head of the Council for the Welfare of Children (CWC) has expressed alarm over the online proliferation of videos involving sexual abuse and exploitation of children that sell on social media channels for as low as P100.

CWC executive director Angelo Tapales said on Thursday the decreasing cost of exploitative materials is caused by its “high volume” online.

“There are reports that [videos] are priced for as low as P100 because the volume is high, so the price is decreasing,” he told a news briefing.

“That’s why we have to go after [the perpetrators] and make it difficult for them to conduct [such activities] to decrease supply and make it prohibitive,” he added.

He stressed transactions for these contents are usually made via digital payment gateways, making it simpler for perpetrators to earn “easy money.”

This is among the main factors behind the proliferation of such videos that victimize Filipino youth, he said, along with frequent internet use and relatively good command of the English language of children in the country.

Wrong mentality

Tapales pointed out that reported cases point to a child’s family members and relatives as the facilitators of the crime, who justify their illicit acts as harmless.

“What really drives this is the wrong mentality among parents and relatives that no harm was done to the child because they were just taking videos,” he said.

Aside from the fact that the exploitation of children has been a crime in the country for several decades now, Tapales warned that it could “scar them for life psychologically and mentally,” especially when these videos are uploaded on the internet for public consumption.

From January to July this year, a total of 9,408 cases of child rights violations were recorded by the Women and Child Protection Center of the Philippine National Police.

Tapales noted the bulk of the latest figure were child abuse, rape cases, and acts of lasciviousness against children.

For the whole year of 2023, PNP has revised its total count of 18,756 Osaec cases from an initial number of 17,680. INQ