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But while the village is currently in the spotlight, authorities and child rights advocates say the fast-growing global industry is infecting many parts of the mostly poor Philippines, with thousands of children having been abused.

At first look, the coastal community of Ibabao is a typical close-knit rural village, where many of the longtime residents are relatives or enjoy close and longstanding ties.

In scenes echoed across the devoutly Catholic country, its residents regularly attend Masses held in quaint chapels along narrow footpaths and dirt roads.

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Raids, kids rescued

Shortly after, police in the Philippines began carrying out raids in Ibabao and nearby areas with the help of British, Australian and US authorities.

One of the raids saw dozens of Filipino policemen and social workers break into the bungalow next to the day-care center in September last year, arresting a couple and rescuing their three children, aged 3, 9 and 11.

Two days later, 13 other children, who were being abused in other Ibabao homes, were rescued, according to Philippine police.

Residents are generally wary of outsiders but some allowed AFP to interview them on condition of anonymity.

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Shadowy outsider

But, according to local social workers, a Filipino woman from outside the community believed to belong to an organized crime group relocated to the village several years ago and introduced locals to the get-rich-quick scheme.

That woman taught residents how to scout for clients in pornographic chat rooms and receive payments through international money transfers, according to the social workers, who did not want to be named for security reasons.

Some operators lured friends of their children into their homes and abused them, threatening to harm their parents if they told anyone, the social workers said.

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Nevertheless, she said that staying silent and steering clear of those involved in the trade was the best thing to do, to avoid any trouble.

In announcing the dismantling of the pedophile network, Britain’s National Crime Agency said in mid-January that 11 people had been arrested in the Philippines and 18 elsewhere around the world.

Another 733 suspects were being investigated, the British crime agency added.

Andrey Sawchenko, Philippine head of the Washington-based International Justice Mission who helped in the arrests, said 39 children had been rescued in Ibabao and elsewhere in the Philippines.

Tip of iceberg

But this is widely believed to be just the tip of the iceberg, with the British crime agency describing online child sex abuse as a “significant and emerging threat.”

“Extreme poverty, the increasing availability of high speed Internet and the existence of a vast and comparatively wealthy overseas customer base has led to organized crime groups exploiting children for financial gain,” it said.

Dutch advocate group Terre des Hommes estimates that “tens of thousands” of children are being abused through the cybersex industry just in the Philippines.

Last year, the group created a virtual 10-year-old Filipino girl that was deployed in Internet chat rooms to lure pedophiles.

Over 10 weeks, 20,000 people from 71 countries approached the fake girl asking for sexual performances, according to Terre des Hommes, which passed on the details of the pedophiles to police.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/

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Mothers accompany their children to a day care center, next to the now abandoned house (back) that used to streamed live sex acts of children to paedophiles around the world, in Ibabao village, Cebu provnce, in central Philippines on January 21, 2014

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A passenger plane flies over Ibabao village, Cebu provnce, in central Philippines, on January 22, 2014

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Grabe.

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UNICEF Manila study

According to a book by Arnie Trinidad entitled Child Pornography in the Philippines published by UNICEF Manila, a prominent case happened in Pagsanjan, Laguna, a rural community South of Manila. The case, according to Trinidad, involved the victimization of 590 children and adolescents aged 7 to 17 years old, by 22 American and European pedophiles who were involved in the production of pornography, drug abuse, and the sexual abuse of children.

The study, published in 2005, documents other cases perpetrated by both foreign and local pedophiles and includes in depth analysis of the ongoing problem, in the context of the social, economic and legal environment.

The UNICEF Manila study states that social factors increase the propensity of children to be victimized in pornography. Among these are the commercial sexual exploitation of children, sex tourism, poverty, peer influence, availability of technology, cultural factors, among others.

wikipedia/

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