Philippines Moves to Protect Children from Sexual Abuse

The Philippines passed a new law to raise the age of consent. The change could go a long way toward protecting the country’s most vulnerable children. 

Children on the street. Beegee49. CC BY-ND 2.0.

The Philippines’ House of Representatives recently passed a new law that would raise the age of consent from 12 to 16. Long among the world’s lowest ages of consent, lawmakers hope the change will protect children from sexual predation. In recent decades, the Philippines has become a global hub of child sexual exploitation. Though the new law will improve protections for victims of abuse, long-lasting effects of sexual predation will be felt for years to come. 

The age of consent was decided in 1930 in the Revised Penal Code at 12 years old, the product of what is widely considered a culture of patriarchy. At such a low age, sexual acts against children were almost impossible to prosecute in court. Defendants could claim sex with a child was consensual because they were both above the age of consent. Under this code, defendants could escape a rape verdict if they offered to marry their victim. 

In recent years, sexual abuse against minors has seen a massive increase across the Philippines. Experts say the number of IP addresses used for streaming child pornography has risen from 23,333 in 2014 to 81,723 in 2017, a 250% increase. Cases of HIV/AIDS among minors have been increasing steadily over a similar period of time. Of all rape victims, 70% are children, the vast majority girls. As a result, girls as young as 14 are becoming pregnant at higher rates. 

Campaigners for the bill long argued that children needed far more protections than the Philippines’ legal system granted. The law that would raise the age of consent also contains measures to harshen penalties for rape, sexual exploitation and abuse as well as shift the burden of proof of consent from the victim to the offender. The new law passed the House of Representatives with 207 votes and only 3 opposing; it is expected to pass the Senate just as easily. 

A family making ends meet. FotoGrazio. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Increased data collection has painted a clearer picture of the issue in recent years. International advocacy helped focus lawmakers’ attention on the issue, but it also revealed the lack of resources the Philippines suffers from in combating sex crimes. Sixty-four percent of online abuse cases were initiated by foreign authorities who traced crimes back to the country.

Online sexual abuse afflicts more children today than it ever has. A combination of widespread poverty and COVID-19 lockdowns has rendered the practice rampant in recent months. Poor families were disproportionately harmed by lockdowns, causing a small number of families to resort to online abuse. Predators from foreign countries—mainly the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia—pay facilitators to sexually abuse children, directing the abuse themselves via a livestream. 

The facilitators often include immediate and extended family. In 90 cases involving 381 victims from 2011 to 2017, 43 were abused from two months up to two years. Half were arranged by parents or extended family. The average age of victims was 11. The youngest victim was less than 1. 

The Philippine government plans to implement additional measures to address the conditions that make child sexual abuse so prominent. The Philippine Plan of Action to End Violence Against Children, begun in 2017, campaigns for children’s rights and was partially responsible for raising the age of consent. The U.S. Department of State classifies the Philippines as Tier 1 for fully complying with the Trafficking Victims Protections Act. For the time being, raising the age of consent marks another crucial step in combating sexual exploitation.


Michael McCarthy

Michael is an undergraduate student at Haverford College, dodging the pandemic by taking a gap year. He writes in a variety of genres, and his time in high school debate renders political writing an inevitable fascination. Writing at Catalyst and the Bi-Co News, a student-run newspaper, provides an outlet for this passion. In the future, he intends to keep writing in mediums both informative and creative.

Swimming with Whale Sharks in Mexico: Ecotourism or Exploitation?

The water was about 70 degrees. When we jumped in, I had forgotten to pull my snorkel mask down—it was still strapped to my forehead. This was a dead giveaway to the tour guide that I was inexperienced, and he swam over and yanked the mask down over my eyes.  He then guided me and one more novice snorkeler to an open area of the water, away from everyone else. Gently, he pushed our heads beneath the surface, and when I opened my eyes, I was staring at a fish roughly the size of the 38 Geary back home. This was a Whale Shark, the largest fish on the planet, and here in La Paz, the capital city of Baja California and a well-known hub for shark migration, such sights were fairly commonplace. Through Cabo Expeditions, the tour company that organized these trips,anyone with $140 could see these giants up close. There were other companies operating in the area as well, and midway through the trip, our guide directed our attention to a shark in the distance being flanked by another group of tourists. They were patting the animal’s sides while it tried to feed on plankton, and as excitement overcame tact, the patting turned into light slapping. Our guide took a moment to stress the importance of enjoying these animals in a respectful way.  It was the only black mark on an otherwise magical afternoon.

Laz Paz, captial of Baja California. Az81964444. Public Domain

Three years later, while attending UC Berkeley, I stumbled into a showing of "Mexico Pelagico,” a documentary that followed a group of conservationists as they tried to protect various sharks in the Sea of Cortez. It got me thinking about my trip to La Paz. In the film, it was said that 97 million sharks were killed every year, with Mexico ranking 6th among countries participating in the slaughter. While greed and envy were contributing factors to overfishing, the main factor was poverty; For many, shark fishing was the only way to make a decent living. The film went on to examine the recent explosion of Whale Shark ecotourism in Cancun, with tour companies recruiting the very fishermen who killed sharks in the past as tour operators working toward their preservation. It seemed like a practical solution that addressed both the needs of the environment and those of the fishermen. However, thinking back to that poor shark being slapped by those tourists in La Paz still made me uneasy, and I began to wonder what alternatives were available to people who wished to see and learn about these animals.

After graduation, I traveled to China and visited the Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, currently the largest aquarium on Earth. The Ocean Kingdom had the finest display tank I’d ever seen, complete with two juvenile whale sharks. I also flew to Atlanta to visit the Georgia Aquarium, the second largest aquarium on Earth, and currently the only place in the US where one can see captive Whale Sharks. This aquarium had four adult sharks in a tank that was a bit smaller than its Chinese counterpart, but still gave the animals plenty of room to move around. Both aquariums had invested millions into the care of these animals and, as far as I could tell, both were deeply committed to Whale Shark conservation and education, but neither aquarium left the same lasting impression that my trip to La Paz did.  Not only were there more sharks see Mexico, but they also seemed more at ease in their natural environment. For me personally, there was a sense that I as a human being was participating in the local ecosystem, not dominating it or trying to replicate it somewhere else.

A pair of Whale Sharks. Elias Levy. CC BY 2.0

Is snorkeling with Whale Sharks beneficial? Is it exploitative? The evidence suggests it’s a bit of both. A study conducted between 2012 and 2014 on Whale Shark ecotourism in the Philippines revealed that over 95 percent of tourists touched the animals during their encounters with them, even though they knew It was not permitted and penalties included jail time. In Djibouti, scars from boat propellers have been observed on up to 65% of the local Whale Shark population. Now, the good news: In 2013, a group of researchers from the University of British Columbia determined that the annual revenue from shark fishing stood at $630 million and had been declining over the past decade, while the annual revenue from shark ecotourism was $314 million, a figure that was projected to increase to $780 million over the next 20 years.  These numbers suggest an inverse relationship between the rise of ecotourism and the decline of fishing. In the film “Mexico Pelagico,” it was said that Baja's’ fish biomass was projected to increase by 465% over the next 17 years. While there are benefits and drawbacks to snorkeling with Whale sharks, the former seems to outweigh the latter.   

A Whale Shark at the Georgia Aquarium. Zac Wolf. CC BY-SA 2.5.

Whale Shark Ecotourism is a booming business, and some companies are bound to be more or less respectful than others, but overall it seems like a step in the right direction.  If the shark at the mercy of those tourists back in La Paz suffered any discomfort, it was most likely temporary, as the shark was probably free to go about its business once the tourists had left. This is certainly a better fate for a shark than being hooked on a fishing line and chopped into pieces, or being confined to a tank for the rest of its life.  The fact that we are beginning to change our perception of sharks and recognize the importance of their conversation is a sign of progress- our approach can refine itself over time. In the meantime, I’m planning my next trip to La Paz.





JONATHAN ROBINSON is an intern at CATALYST. He is a travel enthusiast always adding new people, places, experiences to his story. He hopes to use writing as a means to connect with others like himself.












The Furnace of Broken Dreams

On the outskirts of Dhaka you will find hundreds of small brick factories.

The majority of these factories are considered illegal by the Bangladeshi government because the chimney stacks are too low and because they still use coal as their main fuel. Burning wood in kilns has also been illegal since 1989, but nearly two million tons of firewood are burned in ovens annually. The toxic fumes that these countless factory sites emit cause almost half of all the air pollution in the city.

Beside each factory are the makeshift villages or camps, where the workers live. Whole families are forced to labour for twelve hours a day, without rights and with a salary that barely allows them to survive.

The workers rise before dawn, heading up to the furnace in the half darkness. At 9 o’clock they are permitted to take a half hour break from their work. Most return quickly to their homes, wake up their youngest children who still are sleeping, and prepare breakfast for their families.

It is then back to work until 2 o’clock, when they may take another half hour break for lunch. Below you see Imran Uddin, 24 years old, a few minutes before a tropical storm hit the factory site where he was working with his brothers. None of the workers stopped during the storm.

Most of the workers in the furnace are families, including the elderly and also their children, who will begin to work alongside their parents when they are around six years old. The children’s pay is equal to that of adults, and is based on the amount of bricks transported daily. Younger children will spend the day wandering in the camps or around the furnace.

The work day only ends as darkness falls, when the workers will head to the nearest lake or river to wash the grime and dust from their faces and clothes. Returning to their homes, they prepare dinner and fall into an exhausted sleep. It is very rare for a home to have electricity. I was surprised to find that their days were marked only by the rhythm of work, no time even for prayer. They work six and a half days each week.

Most of the workers who we talked with were friendly, despite their fatigue and tiredness, and were glad to speak with someone. They also offered us their hospitality, as best they could, even though some of them told us that they felt ashamed of the conditions they lived in.

Sometimes we spoke with someone who was fearful. Some of the workers were afraid that if the boss knew they had talked to us, they might lose their job. In general, the workers were preoccupied with maintaining a relentless pace of bricks being loaded onto their heads or into the carts.

One of the young men we met, Shakir Kander, was 16 years old. Day in, day out, Shakir shovelled the dusty coal to fuel the hungry brick-baking furnace, from six o’clock in the morning until nightfall.

As with all the other workers, Shakir is allowed only half a day of rest each week. Also below you see a boatman crossing the Bouriganga river, which is considered among the top three most polluted rivers in the world. The many waterways surrounding Dhaka are essential for the transport of materials that are be used in the manufacture of bricks.

Above you see Shamina, thirteen years old, sleeping on the back of her bicycle — used for transporting bricks — during her short lunch break. During my time in Bangladesh, I visited perhaps thirty factories in two months, and met many individuals like Shamina. When embarking on this project, I believed that it was crucial to spend several days at each factory, so that I might more thoroughly capture their moments of everyday life outside of work. Sadly, factory after factory, it became apparent that the daily free time I had imagined for the workers, simply did not exist. Their schedule did not even permit them time to pray before sunrise, and days seemed to pass with an ineluctable cyclicality.

The sun beat down from above, the sweltering furnaces were burned constantly, and the air was always filled with dust and smoke.

I went away upset, with a bitter taste in my mouth. Away from these hellish workplaces, I gratefully breathed great gulps of fresh air, and yet the fate of the workers and their children would remain unchanged.

It was after reading author Kevin Bales’ powerful works on modern slavery and other similar studies, that I felt compelled to move to Bangladesh to tell this story. When I first arrived into Dhaka’s industrial area, and saw the forest of factory chimneys engulfed by thick black smoke, I knew that I had made the right decision. I had to document this. I had to share it with as many people as I could. And so I began.

In the end, what has stayed with me most about these factories, is our remarkable human capacity to somehow find the will to adapt and survive in adverse circumstances, whether environmental, social or economic. Living alongside the workers was, in its own way, a privilege, as I tried to understand and document the depth and truth of their lives.

 

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA.

 

RAFFAELE PETRALLA

Raffaele is a documentary photographer focusing on social, environmental, and anthropological issues.