Paedophiles preying on poor kids
With widespread poverty, children in nations such as Thailand and Vietnam are falling victims to these predators.
BANGKOK: South-East Asia is in the grip of a fresh surge of paedophile activity with predators orchestrating and watching abuse on live-streaming sites and via webcams, and paying for it with near-untraceable cryptocurrency, victims and children’s charities warn.
With widespread poverty, lax laws and creaking judicial systems, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines have long been seen as soft spots by foreign and local paedophiles seeking out underage sex in person.
Tougher policing and greater awareness has deterred some offenders, but technology has shifted the patterns of abuse in a region with growing access to broadband Internet and encrypted technology.
Paedophiles can now use an array of mobile and online tools – including social networks, video-sharing sites and the dark web – to direct and watch child rape and sexual abuse with anonymity, experts warn.
“Predators watch the rapes on large platforms that are not likely to close,” said François Xavier Souchet, of Thai-based NGO Terre des Hommes.
“It’s live, nothing is recorded ... everything is encrypted.
“They pay more and more in Bitcoins, encrypted money makes their transactions as secure as possible,” he added.
This week online giants including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook are giving evidence to the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA), which is being held in London and will look at how to prevent online sex crimes as part of its remit.
Demand for child sexual abuse via webcam is an increasing cause of human trafficking, according to a UN report, with suggestions Thailand has become a hub in the trade, as well as the Philippines.
Cassie, a Filipina victim, said she was just 12 when she was forced to commit sexual acts – both with an adult man and alone – in front of a webcam.
She moved to Manila to work as a maid but was exploited by her mother’s employer. The torment went on for five years.
She said “I felt trapped, betrayed and alone. I was thinking, ‘I want to die, I want to die because of this pain, but I can’t’.”
Her abuser received a two-year jail term in 2017.
Last month, advocacy and legal aid group International Justice Mission (IJM) warned Philippine children were at risk of being forced into live streamed sex abuse, where paedophiles pay to direct so-called “shows” online.
“Easy access to the web and money transfer services make the country a global hotspot for this problem,” said IJM, noting that it is often parents or family members that organise or even commit the abuse.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) estimates 80,000 people in the UK present some kind of sexual threat to children online.
The cyber-abuse phenomenon is reaching “Cambodia and Vietnam”, warned Damian Kean, of the Thai-based NGO ECPAT, which specialises in combating the sexual exploitation of children.
In hyperconnected Vietnam, foreign paedophiles are increasingly targeting young victims online, often on social media.
The communist state last year instated harsher penalties to combat the crime – anyone guilty of molesting a child under 16 faces 12 years in prison, while child rape comes with a maximum sentence of death. — AFP