Forge stronger links with int’l groups to combat cybersex trafficking — Legarda

Photo from Sen. Loren Legarda’s official Facebook page

MANILA — Senator Loren Legarda on Thursday stressed the importance of forging stronger partnerships with international police organizations to combat proliferation of cybersex trafficking.

Legarda said the crime has degraded family values as parents themselves sell their own children online.

“We need to find more ways to immediately combat cybersex because evidently, it is affecting the very core of our society, which is the family,” Legarda said.

”Parents are supposed to teach their children good values, but why are there mothers and fathers who willingly sell their children online and make them perform lewd acts in exchange for money? Nothing, not even poverty, can justify such acts,” she added.

Recently, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), with assistance from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the International Justice Mission, raided a house in Taguig City where they rescued two children from their own mother who was caught in the act of prodding her children to perform lewd acts online.

Legarda has stood up in the Senate several times to speak about the cybersex trafficking involving some parents.

“If children can no longer feel secure and protected in their own homes, then something is terribly wrong in our society. We need to put an end to these kinds of abuses,” Legarda said.

The Senator said that due to the complexity of the crime, it is important that links with international police organizations are strengthened.

Legarda, principal sponsor of the Expanded Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, explained that under the law, harboring a child for purposes of prostitution or production of pornographic materials is considered trafficking.

Furthermore, she said the crime is not plain trafficking but qualified trafficking when the offender is the parent, guardian or someone who exercises authority over the child.

”Any person found guilty of qualified trafficking shall serve life imprisonment,” Legarda said.

In line with this, Legarda also pushed for the immediate passage of the Anti-Computer Pornography Act (Senate Bill No. 532) and the NBI Reorganization and Modernization Act (Senate Bill No. 1902) to boost efforts against cyber pornography.