Negros Oriental, Philippines (CNN) -- Andrea was 14 years old the first time a voice over the Internet told her to take off her clothes."I was so embarrassed
because I don't want others to see my private parts," she said. "The
customer told me to remove my blouse and to show him my breasts."She was in a home in
Negros Oriental, a province known for its scenic beaches, tourism and
diving. But she would know none of that beauty. Nor would she know the
life she'd been promised.Andrea, which is not her
real name, said she had been lured away from her rural, mountain village
in the Philippines by a cousin who said he would give her a well-paid
job as a babysitter in the city. She thought she was leaving her
impoverished life for an opportunity to earn money to finish high
school. Instead, she became another victim caught up in the newest but
no less sinister world of sexual exploitation -- cyber-sex trafficking.
Misled
After arriving at the
two-story house in Negros Oriental -- located in the central Visayas
region of the Philippines -- Andrea found that her new home would become
both workplace and prison. She was shocked by what she saw.
"The windows were covered
so it was dark. There was a computer and a camera where naked girls
would say words to seduce their mainly foreign customers."
She said customers would ask the girls to perform sexually with each other.
For the next few months,
Andrea said she was one of seven girls, between age 13 and 18, who spent
day and night satisfying the sexual fantasies of men around the world.
Paying $56 per minute, male customers typed their instructions onto a
computer and then watched via a live camera as the girls performed
sexual acts. She said the girls were often forced to watch the men they
served on screens.
Police threat
Andrea dreamed of
returning home but her employer, an uncle, slept downstairs and kept the
front door locked. "I was told if I tried to escape, the police would
put me in jail. I believed it. I was very innocent -- I grew up without
TV and had never left my village before," she explained.
Convinced that earning
enough money to finish her education was the only way to help her family
out of poverty, Andrea forced herself to work. But "doing whatever the
customer asked" eventually took its toll. "I wanted to cry but I could
not. I wanted to cover myself with a blanket. I had goose bumps because
of the shame. I would feel like I was floating," she recalled.
Andrea's story is only
one of many playing out every day in a nation where the conditions --
widespread poverty, an established sex trade, a predominantly
English-speaking, technically-literate population and widespread
Internet access -- have made it easy for crimes like this to flourish.
Difficult to stop
Jo Alforque, Advocacy
Officer with End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking
of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT Philippines), an NGO working to
combat child sexual exploitation, explained that because cyber-sex dens
can be located anywhere -- from Internet cafes to private homes and
offices -- they are extremely difficult to identify. Anyone who has a
computer, internet and a Web cam can be in business.
Whether part of large
international criminal syndicates or smaller operations, their
independent nature and lack of coordinated structure make it easy for
cyber-sex operations to remain hidden, she said.According to Andrey
Sawchenko, National Director at the International Justice Mission
Philippines, the private nature of the technology allows the crime to
take place in a venue that law enforcement can't easily access -- and
that makes it harder to gather evidence against perpetrators.Although no official
statistics exist, Ruby Ramores, a former Executive at the Inter-Agency
Council Against Trafficking (IACAT), believes tens of thousands of women
are involved in the industry and that most of the girls are recruited
by friends, family -- sometimes even by their parents. Poverty can often
drive parents to sell the services of their children, she said.
Delia (not her real
name) now aged nine, said she was just 7 years old when her mother made
her undress in front of their computer at home. "I stood there naked.
That's all I wanted to do, not the other things, like when mama said to
spread my legs, I didn't want to," she recalled. "I would be scared of
my mother. Because before I didn't know what she was doing was bad, I
only knew later on."
Rescued after three
years when her father found out about her mother's cyber-sex operation,
Delia is now under the care of a government-run temporary shelter for
abused young girls and spoke to CNN in the company of her social worker.According to Ramores,
parents who submit their children to cyber-sex -- especially the ones
from rural areas -- think this is something that won't violate their
children in the way that traditional sex crimes do because it is just a
camera and just the body being shown, and there is no touching with
anyone else. "So, it's a better option than being pushed to prostitution
which has physical interaction," she said.Social workers say the
families don't understand the effect of the work on their children. They
are thinking, instead, about money and survival.
Government action
Cyber-sex trafficking
may have largely operated under the radar in the past, but there are
signs that the Philippines government is focusing more on the issue.In 2011, the Philippines
successfully prosecuted its first case of cyber-sex trafficking against
two Swedish nationals and three Filipinos. Although there have been
more than 100 convictions under the country's Anti-Trafficking in
Persons law of 2003, this was the first case that specifically punished
someone for cyber-sex operations.
"It gives a strong
message to the traffickers: 'We know you are out there now and we are
going to get you,'" said Ramores. It also serves as a wake-up call for
Filipinos in a country where law enforcement and the public have been
largely unaware of the problem.The government has
initiated a nationwide advocacy and media campaign that focuses on
awareness of this new face of commercial sexual exploitation. This
includes training seminars held to teach those on the front lines -- law
enforcement, prosecutors, government agencies, and NGOs -- to combat
these crimes.
Public appeal
The Philippines Congress
has also passed the Expanded Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, which
increases funding to government agencies, provides greater protection to
victims and is designed to strengthen the prosecution of those engaged
in human trafficking.
Ramores says it's
essential for the public to have a new context in which to interpret any
suspicious behavior: "Unless there will be whistle-blowers, we won't be
able to catch them. We need people to be aware and to cooperate with us
in order for us to track these kinds of crimes."
Andrea was rescued after
being held for three months, when one of the other girls escaped and
told the authorities. She is now a star witness in a case against her
abusers, but she said she has received death threats and that has
prevented the case from progressing. "I want them to be punished but I
have moved far away to Manila because I am scared for my life," she
said.
Scars of abuse
Milet Paguio, a social
worker working with commercially exploited children in the Philippines,
said that many rescued girls, who have often spent years in the
cyber-dens, are often uncooperative with rescuers and confused at first.
They fear they will be the ones punished, and in the cases when family
members are being accused, the girls often want to protect them. The
crime may be a virtual one but the emotional scars are very real.
"They have low
self-esteem, don't respect themselves, and for those who spent a long
time in the dens -- they often behave in a way that is very flirty ...
when they see men, they sometimes cannot control themselves," she said.In many ways, cyber-sex
trafficking appears to be the perfect 21st century crime. Technology has
made it easier to access and exploit the vulnerable, operate illegal
activities across borders and more difficult to discover the identities
of those who are behind the crime.Information technology
evolves quickly and in the Philippines, perpetrators often have more
financial and technological resources than those trying to catch them.According to Sawchenko,
close cooperation with international law enforcement authorities --
providing training to local police and working together to catch those
involved in both countries -- has made a vital difference.Sawchenko points to an
increase in the number of victims being rescued and an increase in the
number of cases being filed against perpetrators in recent years, as an
example.
Global issue
Eric Mcloughlin, Deputy
Attache at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a Homeland Security
Investigations agency (HSI), is among those working with authorities in
the Philippines to fight cyber-crimes. "Because of the nature of the
Internet and cyber-crimes, criminals feel it's easier to operate with
anonymity behind these virtual barriers," he said. "It's a challenge for
law enforcement to identify them and make sure they are held
accountable."In addition to
cyber-operations being more complex criminal syndicates, there are also
many mom and pop shops -- if you take one down there could be several on
the same street who are doing the same acts that might not have
connections to each other."
Even customers abroad
are not safe -- officials in the Philippines are working with U.S.
domestic agencies to identify offenders.Recently, CNN reported that the testimony of three girls in the Philippines
helped convict a Pennsylvania man who had been involved in a cyber-den.
He has been sentenced to 12 years in a U.S. federal prison for child
pornography."Rescuing victims is a
priority but if we don't continue to investigate the ones purchasing
their services, we are only doing half the job," said McLaughlin."Catching those running
the cyber-dens is the first step of what could be a big domino effect
with lots of challenges. If we go to digital analysis and the forensics
of hard drives, we can find that they were communicating with thousands
of customers around the world -- this involves different jurisdictions
and we need evidence to go after all those individuals."
Andrea, now 20 and in
college, hopes to become a social worker so she can help victims. She
offered advice from her own experience: "If you want to find a job, know
everything about the recruiter, the kind of job and the payment. Don't
be blinded by the money. You can find a decent job, just don't give up.
And do not trust people so easily -- just because someone is your family
it does not mean they are good."
The next iPhone – which the internet is nominally calling the iPhone 6
through basic numerical guesswork – is probably the most hotly
anticipated gadget on the planet right now.Previous wisdom would suggest we could be in line for a stopgap, perhaps in the form of a cheap iPhone,
before the year is out. What this article is concerned with however are
rumours relating to the next fully formed smartphone from Apple.
Actress Rae Dawn Chong hasn’t been in the public eye much
lately, but that changed in a flash when tmz.com got a hold of a June 27
interview she did for Matt P’s Radio Happy Hour.Chong had plenty to say about Oprah Winfrey, her costar in 1985’s “The Color Purple.”
