EDITOR’S NOTE: Samson Inocencio Jr. is nationwide director for International Justice Mission (IJM) in the Philippines and the regional Vice President of IJM’s OSEC Hub, working in opposition to the on-line sexual exploitation of children (OSEC). The views expressed on this commentary are solely these of the writer.
On this World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, I discover myself holding two truths in pressure: deep despair and profound hope. After greater than twenty years preventing human trafficking in the Philippines, I’ve witnessed each the unthinkable hurt inflicted on children `– and the extraordinary progress made to stop it.
Right now, at an alarming scale, intercourse offenders from round the world conspire on-line with traffickers in international locations like the Philippines, paying to livestream the sexual abuse of children as directed by the offenders in actual time. As half of International Justice Mission (IJM), I lead a workforce in the Philippines dedicated to defending children from this horrific type of human trafficking, the place younger victims are trafficked to provide little one sexual abuse materials (CSAM), particularly in dwell movies.
At the identical time, I’m hopeful as a result of now we have seen unimaginable success in our partnership with the Philippine authorities to handle this crime. Through IJM-supported instances since 2011, Philippine regulation enforcement has delivered to security over 1,470 victims (and at-risk people), arrested over 430 traffickers and convicted over 265 perpetrators. And in 2016, the US State Department acknowledged this progress by upgrading the Philippines to Tier 1 in its Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report — the first Southeast Asian nation to achieve that prime rating, which nonetheless held its place on the latest 2024 report. The message was clear: when justice programs are outfitted and accountable, they’ll stop trafficking.
But regardless of this progress and sustained dedication from governments, this explicit type of technology-facilitated trafficking continues to ravage communities in the Philippines and round the world. It has grow to be clear to me that we can’t rely solely on the efforts of particular person governments or bilateral partnerships to adequately deal with the tidal wave of violence in opposition to children on the web. It’s merely not sufficient.
“Technology companies play a pivotal role in protecting victims and vulnerable individuals from being exploited through the use of their online platforms and must be part of the solution to combat human trafficking,” according to the 2024 TIP Report. And as a result of many of the world’s largest and most influential know-how firms are based mostly in the United States, the US Congress must move legal guidelines to appropriately incentivize this influential sector to be a component of the reply to this epidemic.
Countries like the US the place intercourse offenders driving the demand for this crime usually dwell — and the on-line platforms, fee processors and cash switch companies that inadvertently allow it — must take motion. This comes at a well timed second for US policymakers, who’ve been increasingly attentive to the crisis of children being exploited online.
It is time for US Congress to move the STOP CSAM Act (H.R.3921 and S.1829). Momentum is constructing for this laws, which was examined at a March hearing earlier than the US Senate Judiciary Committee and superior on a bipartisan foundation by that committee on June 12 in a unanimous vote of 22-0. If enacted, this invoice would enable victims to hunt authorized recourse in opposition to on-line platforms that promote or help and abet their exploitation — a big step towards the aim of defending children from sexual abuse and exploitation on-line.
The STOP CSAM Act would additionally help enhance the high quality of experiences submitted by on-line platforms to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline by requiring platforms to report particular particulars of little one sexual exploitation. Online platforms are already required to report this type of little one intercourse trafficking under the REPORT Act, which was handed by Congress and signed into regulation in May 2024. The STOP CSAM Act strengthens current reporting obligations and emphasizes the significance of together with explicit knowledge factors in CyberTipline experiences that would help establish or find a toddler who could also be actively being exploited — together with person and site data, content material particulars and whether or not content material was beforehand considered.
Stopping on-line sexual exploitation of children is an ethical responsibility — and it ought to be enforced by elevated legislative motion in the US.
The work is long and hard, marked by moments of deep exhaustion and despair, however hope nonetheless wins. I skilled a glimpse of this sustained hope as I used to be acknowledged by the US Department of State as a Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report Hero final 12 months — the highest honor given by the US authorities for anti-trafficking management round the world. Reflecting on the final twenty years of this work, I’ve undoubtedly witnessed humanity’s darkest facet. Yet, my workforce and I’ve additionally skilled deep generosity and care from these working to fight this crime — and we’re fueled by our expertise that change is feasible.