“You have demonstrated that the work of combating online sexual exploitation of children is not solely a two-year endeavor, but a long-term commitment that we must all remain committed to.
\n\nIt is not an easy task, especially because the project began in the middle of the global COVID pandemic, and I commend your dedication and resilience against such challenging and unprecedented factors to ensure the project stayed on track.”
\n\nAtty. Samson Inocencio Jr., Vice President and National Director of IJM's Program against Online Sexual Exploitation of Children, said:\n\n“The success of the A Strong Network of Care project is a huge milestone in IJM's efforts to combat online sexual exploitation of children in the Philippines. The project has enhanced the capacity of the country’s network of social services to provide a comprehensive and trauma-informed response that meets the individual needs of OSEC survivors. We are grateful to the U.S. State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons for investing in survivor care. IJM remains committed to protecting children from this heinous crime and ensuring that survivors receive the support they need to live a life free from exploitation.”
\n \nWe are grateful to our key partners and supporters in this project: \n* Department of Social Welfare and Development \n* Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking \n* Council for the Welfare of Children \n* Child Protection Network \n* Parenting Foundation of the Philippines \n* Local governments of cities and provinces in National Capital Region, Regions III and IV-A in Luzon, Regions VII and VIII in the Visayas, and Regions X and XIII in Mindanao. \n \nTogether let's continue the work of child protection and survivor restoration. We are stronger together and we look forward to our continuing partnership! ","title":"Stronger Together: Celebrating a 2-year IJM and U.S. State Department Collaboration in Creating a Network of Care for Survivors","Published":true,"img":"https://assets.ijm.app/JTIP-Closeout-Group-Photo.jpg","tag":["partnerships"],"description":"Celebrating partners, survivor leaders, and the big wins in supporting child survivors of online sexual exploitation around the Philippines ","publishedDate":"2023-05-04","imageCaption":"In-person hosts and participants at the Stronger Together celebration","ForUpdates":true}},{"id":"recdizbax5t2WqlIv","createdTime":"2023-05-19T01:03:14.000Z","fields":{"slug":"ijm-works-with-local-lawmakers-to-strengthen-child-protection-in-communities","text":"### What Needs to Be Done?\nOne of the first steps to strengthening protection for LGUs (local government units) is to submit an ordinance (a law specific to that particular local government), which when passed into law will prohibit acts of online sexual abuse and exploitation of children (OSAEC), indicate their corresponding penalties, create a supportive environment for the survivors, and provide the funds needed.
\n\n\nWe celebrate local legislators for taking a critical step in fighting for the best interests of the child. We are witnessing a growing wave of support among local governments around the Philippines.
\n\nThe Philippines has come a long way in protecting children. While we are a hotspot for the crime of online sexual exploitation, as we continue to partner together, we are making unprecedented strides in child protection, and making justice for child survivors unstoppable.\n\n\n\n","title":"IJM Works with Local Lawmakers to Strengthen Child Protection in Communities","Published":true,"img":"https://assets.ijm.app/Main-Image-NPD-and-Local-Legislators.png","tag":["partnerships"],"description":"The recently passed Anti-OSAEC* Law (R.A. 11930) gives local governments the authority and access to resources to protect communities from the *Online Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children. But local legislators must take some first steps.","publishedDate":"2022-12-09","imageCaption":"Atty. Nelisa Guevara-Garcia and Atty. Samson Inocencio of IJM present a certificate of participation to Councilor Jocelyn Pesquera at an IJM seminar for legislators","ForUpdates":true}},{"id":"rec3pyEqt5iTKfKkw","createdTime":"2023-05-30T08:30:03.000Z","fields":{"slug":"were-closer-to-protecting-kids-from-sexual-abuse-online","text":"Children need companies to **design platforms for safety** as effectively as they innovate for profit. Kids need governments to regulate the internet the way they regulate physical spaces—with **protection and accountability** as priority. And **civil society organizations** must play their role too, sharing promising models and practices while amplifying survivor leaders globally. \n\n\nThese imperatives are in the [Global Principles on Digital Safety,]( https://www.weforum.org/whitepapers/global-principles-on-digital-safety-translating-international-human-rights-for-the-digital-context/) published by the World Economic Forum, and recent global experience affirms their truth. \n\n\nFor instance, the world is moving on from the COVID-19 pandemic in large part because of the urgency with which corporations, governments, and research institutions collaborated to develop and deploy vaccines. A process that normally takes 10-15 years was accomplished in only 12 months because of i) urgent ii) global collaboration. \n\n\nAnother pandemic that continues to rage—child sexual abuse and exploitation online—similarly needs urgent global action. It is crystal clear that digital spaces and internet-connected, camera-enabled devices pose growing opportunities for offenders to sexually abuse children with ease, anonymity, and impunity. And much is at stake. \n\n\nIn my 8 years leading International Justice Mission (IJM) teams in the Philippines, I saw firsthand the harm caused to children sexually abused real-time in video calls, as directed by paying sex offenders in Western countries. These offenders abuse their financial power to exploit children remotely, producing new CSAM (child sexual abuse material). \n\nThe Australian Institute of Criminology [found]( https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2021-10/ti639_live_streaming_of_child_sexual_abuse.pdf \t) a median of A$51 being paid by sex offenders, equivalent of just over £31 Euro or $33USD, per abusive livestream. \n## $33 is all it costs to purchase a child’s dignity, safety, and privacy.\n\n\nWhile the offender watches the abuse in real-time, it rarely stays there. Recorded livestreamed abuse fuels the explosion in child abuse material online (as documented by UK-based [Internet Watch Foundation]( https://www.iwf.org.uk/media/23jj3nc2/distribution-of-captures-of-live-streamed-child-sexual-abuse-final.pdf)). Child victims are left with serious emotional and physical trauma, and in the Philippines, victims are abused for *two years* on average prior to safeguarding. In the Philippines, this type of online sexual exploitation violates human trafficking, child abuse and cybercrime laws, including a new Anti-OSAEC (Anti-Online Sexual Abuse and Exploitation) [law]( https://legacy.senate.gov.ph/republic_acts/ra%2011930.pdf) passed in 2022. \n\n\n\nOSEC is a global crime, in which a single OSEC trafficker often engages with multiple OSEC customers from around the world, and in which a single OSEC customer often solicits abuse material from multiple OSEC traffickers. \n\nWhether the demand-side offenders are in the UK, U.S., Australia, Europe or anywhere else, the harm to children is the same: behind every livestream is a real child, suffering real trauma — often for years on end while the abuse goes undetected, unreported, and unprevented. In my years working in the Philippines, the identified global hotspot for financially-motivated livestreamed [exploitation.](https://paragonn-cdn3.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/ijmuk.org/documents/FULL-OSEC-REPORT.pdf) \n\nI have heard from survivors of this abuse, who recount its devastating impact. \nRuby*, who was trafficked as a 16-year-old, recalls how the abuse eroded her will to live: \n>**While doing every disgusting show [in front of the computer camera with the customer], I lost every bit of my self-esteem to the point where I felt disgusted with myself as well. It’s like being trapped in a dark room without any rays of light at all. There’s no point in living at all.**\n\n\n\nJoy*, another survivor leader, advocates for improved detection and reporting, informed by her personal story of abuse: \n\n\n\n>**I think there should be a technology that will detect CSAM. Because in my experience, I was abused when I was still young but I was only rescued after several years after the abuse. It is better that children will be rescued earlier by early detection. With early detection, there will be less children that will be further abuse if perpetrators are detected or arrested early on. Foreigner pedophiles must also be detected and stopped early on because they create the demand for CSAM both on the production and livestreaming.**\n\n\n\n\n*a pseudonym\n## Data Insights Reveal a Growing Threat\nWhile reports to the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) CyberTipline continue to increase every year, other data sources reveal a growth in severity of harm. In 2022, the Internet Watch Foundation found that “extreme child sexual abuse” online doubled in just two years. While data on demand-side offenders is scarce, the UK reports there are between 550,000 and 850,000 people in the UK alone who pose sexual risks to children, [according to the National Crime Agency]( https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/news/online-is-the-new-frontline-in-fight-against-organised-crime-says-national-crime-agency-on-publication-of-annual-threat-assessment). And a recent survey of CSAM offenders on the dark web revealed that 51% of German respondents watch live-streamed child sexual abuse. \nThe threat to children of being abused in ‘real-time’ too, has grown. “Live-streaming of child sexual exploitation for payment has seen an increase in recent years” according to [INTERPOL]( https://www.interpol.int/en/News-and-Events/News/2020/INTERPOL-report-highlights-impact-of-COVID-19-on-child-sexual-abuse). [Europol]( https://www.europol.europa.eu/publications-events/main-reports/internet-organised-crime-threat-assessment-iocta-2020) Europol and the [WeProtect Global Alliance](https://www.weprotect.org/global-threat-assessment-21/) concur. At IJM, in partnership with the Nottingham Rights Lab, we are set to release results in mid-2023 of a multi-year research effort to measure the prevalence of financially motivated CSAM production in the Philippines through our [Scale of Harm](https://www.ijm.org.ph/assets/resource/IJM-Scale-of-Harm-Project-Summary-2022.pdf). To our knowledge, this will be the first such study in the world, providing data and programmatic insights at national and local levels. Scale of Harm has been, from day one, a multi-sector collaboration that benefitted from survivor leader expertise and consultation all along the way. \n## Legislative Movements Promise Change\nIn response, governments and legislators across the globe are moving to both regulate tech platforms and resource justice response: Examples include the Philippines [Anti-OSAEC law]( https://legacy.senate.gov.ph/republic_acts/ra%2011930.pdf), UK Online Safety Bill, Australia’s Online Safety Act 2021 and BOSE, the proposed [EU legislation to prevent and combat online CSEA]( https://www.end-violence.org/articles/eus-proposed-new-legislation-promises-brave-new-online-world), and several bills in the U.S. ([REPORT](https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/2023/2/blackburn-ossoff-introduce-bill-to-update-missing-and-exploited-children-cybertipline) Act, [Project Safe Childhood]( https://hunt.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-hunt-senator-cornyn-introduce-bill-improve-investigations-online) Act, etc). All these legislative initiatives seek to prevent child sexual abuse online through some combination of increased detection, reporting, a duty of care, safety by design, transparency and accountability, and improved law enforcement responses. All of this legislative action is truly urgent, because this growing societal cancer has – for many years now – been ‘outstripping our global capacity to respond and *‘a [constantly evolving phenomenon]( https://www.europol.europa.eu/crime-areas-and-statistics/crime-areas/child-sexual-exploitation), shaped by developments in technology.’*\nOther experts, like Hany Farid, argue that it is time to take a [product liability]( https://data.berkeley.edu/news/hany-farid-testifies-section-230-platform-accountability-gonzalez-and-reform) and consumer protection approach to address unsafe product design choices lacking built-in safety features. Simply put, children need companies to design for safety as effectively as they innovate for profit.\n## Justice & Tech Solutions Exist\nMost experts agree, there is no single approach to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation. Rather, like other public health and crime prevention efforts, effective prevention is multi-sectoral and multi-faceted.\nA safety by design approach can play a central role in *preventing* harm from ever taking place. And when it does happen, companies need to quickly detect and report the maximum amount of information so law enforcement can do their job. As governments replace offender impunity with offender accountability, that too will serve to prevent future harm by deterring a subset of offenders. In other words, safety by design combined with effective justice responses can create a shield for children, exponentially increasing their protection online and in the real world, both before and after initial harm. And both of these can ultimately change societal norms when it becomes harder to find and create CSAM online and more costly for offenders to do so. \n\nWhen impunity reigns—as it does today—no one is safe. \n\nIt is therefore encouraging to see national governments stepping in. For instance, as part of a comprehensive partnership, IJM supported Philippine authorities to bring to safety 1081 children and others at-risk through strengthening justice system responses. Justice system capacity to address these crimes in the Philippines is stronger than before and continues to grow through NGO and international partnerships. Philippine law enforcement, prosecutors, and social services have prioritized trauma-informed, child protection efforts. Within its first four years of operation, the Philippines Internet Crimes Against Children Center (PICACC) made possible the rescue of 577 victims from online sexual exploitation and the arrest of 122 offenders. With more widespread global cooperation, imagine how much more could be done.\nProtecting children from these crimes requires coordinated global efforts from governments, the tech and financial sectors, civil society, and survivor leaders. It is critical that companies clearly understand the scale of harm occurring on or via their platforms, which is why IJM’s Center to End Online Sexual Exploitation of Children collaborates with industry on improved detection, disruption and reporting. In November 2022, I spoke passionately at the Singapore FinTech Festival, the largest financial tech gathering in the world. I called on tech and financial sectors to embed child safety into their platforms and products and partner with NGOs working to make [communities safer](https://ijm.org.au/fintech/). \n\n\nBut what can companies do when the abuse happens in “real-time” and how can privacy concerns be addressed? Safety technology, such as SafeToWatch and others, promises to technologically prevent and disrupt the production and sharing of new CSAM, even in [end-to-end encrypted]( https://safetonet.com/safetowatch-commentary-wired-magazine/) environments. Such real-time threat detection tools are designed to disrupt the display of child sexual abuse happening live on video conferencing platforms. Implemented on devices or in apps, such technology could prevent child sexual abuse material production without unfairly invading someone’s privacy. \nWhile tools to detect known and new child abuse in images, recorded and live video exist, implementation of online safety rules, tools, and systems is uneven across companies, with no established standards or action. For example, in 2022 [Australia’s eSafety Commissioner] (https://www.esafety.gov.au/industry/basic-online-safety-expectations) issued legal notices to seven tech companies requiring them to report on how they are tackling child sexual exploitation on their platforms. The report revealed “that the providers are neither taking action to detect CSEA in livestreams (insofar as any of these could be regarded as livestreaming services) or taking action to detect CSEA in video calls or conferences.” All companies should use the best available technology to combat CSAM in images and recorded/live video.\nAs child sexual abuse online rages, governments can help reduce the production of first-generation child abuse materials, including livestreamed exploitation. Government legislation should create requirements or standards for tech companies to make their platforms and products safe by design. We need to expect more technological prevention from companies, not simply more reporting. \nWhile still reacting to harm by detecting and removing CSAM already online, companies should move increasingly upstream to prevent CSAM production and distribution in the first instance, including by testing sophisticated on-device (“client-side”) emerging technologies. These technologies can be privacy protective. With industry-wide change, offenders can have nowhere to hide and nowhere online to abuse children with impunity.\nIn considering how best to regulate digital spaces in a post-pandemic world, it is essential that governments listen directly to survivor leaders, including from the Global South, who are speaking out about the issue. Survivor leaders, such as from the [Philippine Survivor Network]( https://www.ijm.org.ph/articles/philippine-survivor-network-launched) have unique expertise and credibility to advise on building a digital landscape that gives no opportunity for exploitation. They have already consulted on the [UK Online Safety Bill]( https://www.ijmuk.org/stories/survivor-letter-to-uk-government-online-safety-bill), the World Economic Forum Global Principles for Digital Safety, and [advocated for passing of EU legislation]( https://globalsurvivornetwork.org/stories/philippine-survivors-urge-eu-parliament-and-union-council-for-stronger-legislation). \n\nTo stem the growth of these violations of children’s rights, it will take a coordinated global effort among legislators, criminal justice systems, tech and financial sectors, civil society, and survivor leaders.\n\nThe challenges are complex, but child protection solutions – in the justice, tech, and financial sectors – already exist. It is time for key stakeholders to prioritize broad deployment of these comprehensive child protection systems. \n\nJust as urgent global collaboration and resource investment helped curb the COVID-19 pandemic, so too can a global, urgent multi-sectoral response protect millions of children from offenders eager to harm them online and in person. \n\n**John Tanagho** is Executive Director of IJM’s [Center to End Online Sexual Exploitation of Children]( https://www.ijm.org.ph/center) \n\n","title":"We’re Closer to Protecting Kids from Sexual Abuse Online","Published":true,"img":"https://assets.ijm.app/Protecting-Children-Online-Main-Image.jpg","tag":["partnerships"],"description":"We're getting closer than ever before to achieving multi-sectoral and multi-faceted protection of children from online offenders.","publishedDate":"2023-05-30","imageCaption":"A survivor of online sexual exploitation","author":"John Tanagho","ForUpdates":true,"banner":"https://assets.ijm.app/Protecting-Children-Online-Main-Image.jpg"}},{"id":"rec1pF7dreGQ5U5I8","createdTime":"2023-05-30T10:19:55.000Z","fields":{"slug":"ijm-supports-the-earn-it-act-of-2023","text":"IJM welcomes the reintroduction and committee passage of the EARN IT (Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies) Act in the United States. This bipartisan bill aims to combat the online sexual exploitation of children. \n\n## The EARN IT Act (S. 1207):\n* clarifies legal violations related to online sexual exploitation of children are not to be afforded protection under the law, \n* provide additional recourse and tools for survivors, and \n* updates the statutory term for images and video created through online exploitation from “child pornography” to “child sex abuse material” (CSAM), which more accurately reflects the traumatic nature of this crime\n\n## A significant step towards child protection:\nAs an organization that has been fighting against human rights abuses for more than 25 years, IJM has long advocated for stronger laws and policies to protect children from violence. IJM believes that this legislation is a significant step toward protecting children online. \n\nIn the Philippines, IJM with the Philippine Government and foreign law enforcement have supported the safeguarding of over 1,100 children victimized by, or at serious risk of, trafficking into online sexual exploitation. \n\nIn most cases, local traffickers broadcast—through live streaming video or the production of new child sexual exploitation materials— the sexual abuse and exploitation of victims to foreign sex offenders. In IJM’s study conducted with the Philippine Government under the U.S. - Philippines Child Protection Compact (CPC) Partnership, 51% of victims identified were 12 years old or younger at the time of law enforcement intervention.\n\n> Technology has revolutionized our world, and it has also created new opportunities for criminals to exploit vulnerable children,\n\nNate King, Director of Congressional Affairs at IJM, said:\n\n> The EARN IT Act will ensure that technology companies are doing everything in their power to prevent child sexual exploitation on their platforms. We commend the Senate Judiciary Committee for advancing this legislation and urge Senate leadership to schedule a vote on the bill this year.\n\nThe EARN IT Act will also enhance reporting and preservation requirements for technology companies to the CyberTipline, which is operated by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). \n\nAccording to NCMEC, the CyberTipline receives an average of 80,000 daily reports of online exploitation of children. In 2022, 89.3% of all CyberTipline reports were linked to potential offenders outside the U.S. and referred to law enforcement agencies in more than 140 countries. \n\nFrom IJM’s experience in training international law enforcement partners on CyberTipline investigations, it is clear that updates are desperately needed to the existing reporting framework. \n\nIJM supports the enhanced reporting requirements in the EARN IT Act that will improve consistency, quality, and timeliness in reports of suspected online sexual exploitation of children sent from online service providers to the CyberTipline.\n\n> Online sexual exploitation of children is a global pandemic and we need a global response to combat it,\n\nJohn Tanagho, Executive Director of IJM’s Center to End Online Sexual Exploitation of Children, said:\n\n> As an international leader, the United States has a responsibility to stand up for child protection at home and abroad. While the EARN IT Act would affect U.S.-based companies, vulnerable children around the world would benefit from the protective measures of this legislation. We applaud the bill's sponsors and co-sponsors and urge Congress to pass this important legislation.\n\nWith support from both sides of the aisle, and from a broad coalition of organizations including IJM, the EARN IT Act is on its way to becoming a law. Together, let's protect children in U.S. and globally.\n\n\n## More about the Bill:\nThe bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate on April 19, 2023, by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and unanimously passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 4. A version of the EARN IT Act was also introduced in the House of Representatives (H.R. 2732) on April 19 by Congresswoman Ann Wagner (R-MO) and Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia (D-TX).\n\nThe Senate bill is co-sponsored by U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), John Kennedy (R-LA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), John Cornyn (R-TX), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Susan Collins (R-ME), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Mark Warner (D-VA), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), and Bob Casey (D-PA).\n","title":"IJM supports the EARN IT Act of 2023","Published":true,"img":"https://assets.ijm.app/law-image.jpg","tag":["community activation"],"description":"Welcoming the legislative strides of the U.S. Senate in combatting online sexual exploitation of children ","publishedDate":"2023-05-24","imageCaption":"Stock Photo of gavel","ForUpdates":true,"banner":"https://assets.ijm.app/law-image.jpg"}}]}