Human Trafficking in The Philippines - Foreign Child Molesters

Foreign Child Molesters

The Philippines continued to assist U.S. law enforcement authorities in the transfer to U.S. custody of Americans who sexually exploited children. Foreign child molesters are a major problem in a country like the Philippines. Some foreign child molesters are very well connected and have positions in industry and politics. Profile studies of these child molesters show they come mostly from Europe and are usually well off, married and with children of their own. Some foreign child molesters arrange with bribes and corrupt practices to get the children out of the country and abuse them in another country. The problem of foreign child molesters continues to be reported in the press. Foreign child molesters have operated openly in the Philippines. Government officials have been accused of turning a blind eye to the sex tourism trade because it helps promote tourism in the country.

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has warned of a new modus operandi of foreign child molesters in the Philippines, “The child molesters usually meet the mothers, sometimes even the grandmothers, of possible victims online and make them their girlfriends. The women usually let the economically better-off foreigners into their lives and their homes, not knowing that the men would later pounce on their young children.” BI Commissioner Marcelino Libanan told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

In Angeles, Pampanga (a hotspot for trafficking and sex trade), child molesters are increasingly using the Internet to lure other child molesters to come to the Philippines. Live video streaming on the Web show children being sexually abused. Other child molesters browse personal profiles or lurk in chat rooms to find their victims.

One October 2004 paper asserted that most of the documented cases of child pornography had been instigated by foreign child molesters. A 2005 paper by the same author tabulated reported cases of victims of child pornography as compared to victims survivors of child prostitution as follows:

News reports in 2008 indicated that the Philippines had deported five foreign child molesters that year (one German, two American and two Japanese), and was seeking five Britons.