One of the fastest growing crimes in the world today, estimated at $152 billion in annual revenues, is child sex trafficking, which could soon run at par with the drug trade in industry size.
According to Eduardo Verastigui, a film producer and political activist, the USA is the main consumer of sex-trafficked children- and the biggest source of kids is nearby Mexico. He says that in Mexico alone, six kids are kidnapped hourly, translated into 57 per day or 21,000 per year. But such figure was even considered merely as a lame estimate.
Shocking to realize that kidnapped kids can be as young as 3-5 years old (boys ) and 5-7 (girls) who are raped sometimes ten times a day. The industry further flourishes, because once the poor kids are physically wasted from brutal daily usage, their vital organs (liver, kidney, etc) are reportedly sold in the illegal black market.
Meanwhile, in a 2020 Report by a US-based NGO called "International Justice Mission", the Philippines is ranked as the No. 1 source of online child sexual exploitation. This was confirmed by a 2022 UNICEF Publication, in an article published in a local paper, that at least 2 million Filipino children have been victimized by online sexual exploitation.
The scourge of poverty reportedly caused a 260 percent surge in this shameful phenomenon, worsened by the Covid phenomenon from 2019 to 2022- which shoved back 20 million people below the poverty line. It is an ironic fact given the truism that the country is the only Christian nation in the Far East. Sadly, many of these sex crimes are even facilitated by church-going parents and relatives of the victim-children.
Verastigui, meantime, along with Tim Billiard pooled their resources together and produced a film " Sound of Freedom" to document and raise awareness about the worldwide eruption of child trafficking for sex and the sale of their vital organs. The movie which will premiere in US theaters in July stars Jim Caviezel, who also played the suffering Jesus in the bloody "Passion of Christ" film- a brutalized version of Jesus' agony, crucifixion, and death.
Anyone interested to help raise awareness of the malady can contact [email protected] and become part of a global movement to send the message that "children are not for sale", much less be enslaved for sex and forced organ donation.
The film was shot in its entirety in the drug-infested Columbia. Many of the film-bit actors reportedly formed a vigilante group while the film was being shot- and arrested 52 traffickers and rescued 200 sex slave children in Cartagena, Columbia, according to Verastigui. They took matters into their own hands.
Filipinos can help the cause by watching the movie once it hits the country's theaters. It is a humongous worldwide problem since many "government agencies" are reportedly protecting the flow of these trafficked humans- either by looking the other way or worse, facilitating their exit to other countries.
Meanwhile, a bit of good news is emanating from the Philippines with the help of the "Internet Watch Foundation" which has provided leading telcos PLDT/Smart and Globe Telecoms some "kind of a digital fingerprint" that can point to sites which contain these pornographic child sex trade.
The telcos can now block porn sites- and stop further victimization of the children and prevent access by perverts and pedophiles. The Department of Justice (DOJ) reportedly demanded from the telcos to improve their technology against these cyber criminals or face prosecution. To date, PLDT had blocked 1.3 million of those illegal sites.
Although a "borderless" crime, where the other party of the crime (users of the porno sites) can be far away from local legal reach, the native sources and porn site owners can be criminally charged. It is said that easy internet access, the presence of millions of cellphones, English language proficiency, and the ill reputation of the country as a sex cyber-hub contributed to the country's infamous tag.
One cannot help but turn Biblical when viewing this abuse against children. Jesus has a special place in His heart for children "Suffer them to come to me" and "Unless you become like little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom".
The stories above are revolting to the spirit, a warning to all and sundry that creating another version of Uncle Tom's Cabin ( after centuries of human slavery)- but, this time. victimizing innocent children - could be the height of "man's inhumanity to man." It is sickening.
(Bingo Dejaresco, a former banker, is a financial consultant and media practitioner. He is a Life and Media member of Finex. His views here, however, are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of Finex. [email protected])