Date January 26, 2014 - 4:55PM
 |
| (Phjoto dowloaded from internet) |
In a remote Philippine village, toddlers played
oblivious at a nursery as the house next door became part of a horrifying child
pornography ring, with live footage of children performing sex acts being
streamed online to pedophiles around the world.
The depraved scenes in the bungalow were being repeated in
many homes throughout Ibabao, a secluded community on Cebu island where
internet child pornography had for some of its 5000 residents become more
lucrative than fishing or factory work.
"In the beginning I was shocked, I could not believe
this was happening in my town," mayor Adelino Sitoy said last week,
shortly after police announced they had cracked a global live-streaming
pedophile ring in which Ibabao was a key source of the child pornography.
But while the village is in the spotlight, authorities and
child-rights advocates say the fast-growing global industry is infecting many
parts of the mostly poor Philippines, with thousands of children having been
abused.
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At first look the coastal community of Ibabao, 550
kilometres south of Manila, is a typical close-knit rural Philippine village,
where many of the long-time residents are relatives or enjoy close and
longstanding ties.
In scenes echoed across the devoutly Catholic Philippines,
its residents regularly attend masses held in quaint chapels along narrow
footpaths and dirt roads.
But police and authorities said that behind the closed doors
of the tiny wooden and brick homes, many parents directed their children for
sex videos in front of webcams connected via the internet to paying pedophiles
overseas.
Other children were lured into the homes of neighbours and
forced to perform sex acts in front of webcams, they said.
Sitoy said the trade thrived because children were locked
secretly inside homes, as well as Ibabao's remote location and the fact some
elected village leaders with relatives involved ignored the crimes.
But some of the videos found their way into the computer
files of a known British pedophile two years ago, triggering a global manhunt
to track down the perpetrators.
The British man was convicted in March last year and
sentenced to eight years in prison.
Police in the Philippines began carrying out raids in Ibabao
and nearby areas with the help of British, Australian and US authorities.
In one of the raids dozens of Filipino police and social
workers broke into the bungalow next to the day care centre in September last
year, arresting a couple and rescuing their three children, aged three, nine
and 11.
Two days later, 13 other children who were being abused in
other Ibabao homes were rescued, according to Philippine police.
Residents are wary of outsiders but some allowed AFP to
interview them on condition of anonymity.
They said "cybersex dens" remained in operation,
but security fears and the Filipino tradition of not interfering with a
neighbour's affairs helped ensure people did not pry or try to stop it.
Housewife Jennifer Canete, 38, was willing to talk openly
about the crimes, confirming many people in the community were involved and
that she feared her four young children could become victims.
Canete said one of her children attended the nursery next to
the house where the three children were being abused.
"We were angry that this could happen just near the day
care," she said.
"I was also afraid, we didn't know what could happen to
our children if they went to school because there were many here who were doing
that."
Authorities say they do not know when the trade arrived in
Ibabao.
But, according to social workers, a Filipina woman from
outside the community believed to belong to an organised crime group relocated
to the village several years ago and introduced locals to the get-rich-quick
scheme.
That woman taught residents how to scout for clients in
pornographic chat rooms and receive payments through international money
transfers, according to the social workers.
Some operators lured friends of their children into their
homes and abused them, threatening to harm their parents if they told anyone,
the social workers said.
One parent said a neighbour who had tried to recruit her
said clients paid as much as $US100 ($A114.46) a session, a fortune in a region
where the minimum daily wage is the equivalent of about $US7.
"I was angry. We were always taught to protect and love
our children," the woman said.
"We are not rich, but we are also not poor and
desperate. It was an evil thing to do."
Nevertheless, she said that staying silent and steering
clear of those involved in the trade was the best thing to do, to avoid any
trouble.
In announcing the dismantling of the pedophile network,
Britain's National Crime Agency said this month that 11 people had been arrested
in the Philippines and 18 elsewhere around the world.
Another 733 suspects were being investigated, the agency
added.
Andrey Sawchenko, Philippine head of the Washington-based
International Justice Mission (IJM) who helped in the arrests, said 39 children
had been rescued in Ibabao and elsewhere in the Philippines.
This is believed to be the tip of the iceberg, with the
British crime agency describing online child sex abuse as a "significant
and emerging threat".
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