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Child rights activists in the Philippines have drafted the first law banning child pornography in the country, and they have based it on legislation created in Ireland.
The law punishes people for owning pornographic material featuring children, as well as those who produce and distribute it.
The south-east Asian country is introducing the measure in an attempt to curb the distribution of child porn through the internet, DVDs and CDs.
According to the Philippine Legislators’ Action Committee for Children, the existing laws meant police would not know what crime to charge a person, arrested for engaging in child pornography with. Police would often extort money from the suspect before releasing him or her, it claimed
The creation of the law is the culmination of joint research by police and the committee into how the growing problem of child porn is being tackled. Last week, the committee launched the Anti-Child Pornography Alliance.
It said: “The extent of child pornography in the Philippines is widespread, although no government data is available to get quantifiable data on the problem. Child pornography is a very real problem in the Philippines but is seldom recognised.”
Yet, according to statistics, from 2004 to 2006 only 31 child pornography cases were reported to the country’s Council for the Welfare of Children, with 20 involving young girls.
The problem was brought into focus in early 2004, when it was discovered 17 children had been sexually abused by three foreigners.
The foreigners also photographed and took video footage of the children in various stages of undress and in sexually suggestive poses.
The committee said many people prosecuted for child porn possession in Ireland and Germany were accessing the material from sources in the Philippines.
The alliance urged the public to raise consciousness and promote zero tolerance of child porn in the Philippines.
Deirdre McCarthy, an Irish solicitor and consultant for the People’s Recovery, Empowerment and Development Assistance group, which protects the rights of children in the country, told the local Inquirer newspaper the laws in Ireland were “simple and straight forward” and suggested that they form the back bone of the new legislation
By Stephen Rogers, Irish Examiner
Wednesday 22nd August 2007
