Several government agencies, led by the Department of Justice (DOJ), have launched a three-year national plan to combat online sexual abuse or exploitation of children (OSAEC) and child sexual abuse or exploitation materials (CSAEM).

The plan was approved by the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) which is composed of the DOJ, as council head, Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), and the Philippine National Police (PNP), and other agencies like the Bureau of Immigration (BI), Department of Migrant Workers (DMW), and Philippine Commission on Women (PCW), and non-government organizations.

In a statement, the DOJ said: “The Plan is built on the vision that ‘every child is free from online sexual abuse, online sexual exploitation, and all forms of sexual abuse or exploitation materials.’"

“Its mission is to safeguard, protect, and empower every child from all forms of OSAEC and CSAEM through a holistic and coordinated approach that ensures their best interests and promotes justice for all,” it also said.

During the launching last week, DOJ Undersecretary Nicholas Felix L. Ty, the undersecretary in charge of IACAT, stressed the importance of the national plan since “criminals are using technology to move faster and hide deeper, and so our response must be faster, smarter, and more coordinated than the threats we face.”

The DOJ said the plan focuses on four key result areas -- ensuring communities are knowledgeable and effectively prevent and reduce OSAEC-CSAEM; establishing a more proactive, gender-responsive, and child-friendly environment and protection system; ensuring cases are reported, reduced, and effectively detected, investigated, and prosecuted; and strengthening and expanding local and international partnerships.

It also said the plan was to fulfill the mandate of Republic Act No. 11930, the OSAEC-CSAEM law.

The DOJ noted that the plan was formulated after extensive nationwide consultations involving more than 300 stakeholders -- including government agencies, law enforcement, prosecutors, social workers, civil society organizations, foreign counterparts, private sector partners, children and young people, and victim-survivors – “to ensure that the strategy is grounded in lived realities and frontline experience.”

Aside from the IACT members, the launching was attended by representatives of the Senate, the House of Representatives, and other key national and international partners including the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations- Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ASEAN ACWC) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).