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Cybersex Trafficking

Media:

My name is Cassie, and I’m nine years old from the Philippines. I belong to a tribe called Manobo, and grew up in a family with twelve children who always went to church together. Being born in a very difficult living situation, I had already exposed to the harsh, harsh realities of life ever since I could remember. Even though my parents work hard so everyone could eat, they also taught us how to pray every morning to show our gratitude to God for every, for each day of our life. My dream was to finish my education and I would think of creative ways to earn money for school. I would gather my neighbor’s old stuff and sell it to the junk shop so I could buy paper and pen. I didn’t have the proper school uniform. I was supposed to wear shoes, but I didn’t have slippers. Some of the students would laugh at me, but I didn’t mind, because all I really wanted was to finish my education. But eight years ago, my life took a wrong turn. It is a dark memory that has given me the most important lesson on healing and forgiveness. I was 12 years old when I was lured by my neighbour and became a victim of online pornography. He was very nice to us at the beginning, visiting our home and spending time there.

Studio – John Dickson:

Hey, before we go any further, uh, I should just say that much of this episode is disturbing. I imagine that some listeners, especially those with haunting sexual experiences, might want to give the whole episode a miss. Back to Cassie, who’s speaking to a global prayer gathering of thousands of people for International Justice Mission, the largest anti-slavery organization in the world.

MEDIA:

He visually convinced me to go with him with a promise to give me and my family a better life. He brought me to a place far from home and true to his word. I was able to have a good clothes and he sent me to a good school. But little did I know there was something he would ask in return in exchange for providing for my needs. He sold me into different men. I was asked to do many things in inexplicable things in front of the camera.

Studio – John Dickson:

Cassie’s story is just one of the many, many, many stories of children being lured into a life of sexual slavery in the Philippines.

MEDIA:

That became a daily battle for me. I keep quiet and continue to do what he asked, because in a ways, I was grateful for everything, and feel indebted to the man. During these days, I was with my recruiter, I felt hopeless. I asked God, Why is this happening to me? Why you don’t stop it? I was so mad at God. Why did he let me go to that house? Why? I thought I would never get out of the situation. But God was really good. And he had a good purpose in it all. I was found and rescued with four others.

Studio – John Dickson:

Today’s episode is a hard one to listen to. It was a hard one to make. We’ll be speaking with people on the front lines in the war against cyber sex trafficking of children in the Philippines, the epicenter of this heinous crime. It’s a myth that there’s no such thing as slavery. And just as Christians were at the forefront of anti slavery work way back in the 5th century, and again in the 19th century, we’ll be speaking to today’s heroes, continuing that tradition, fighting for the absolute end of slavery in their lifetime. I’m John Dickson, and this is Undeceptions.

Undeceptions theme

Caroly Houmes:
Modern day slavery is, in my opinion, one of the Largest, that’s why we call it modern day slavery. It’s one of the largest modern atrocities. It’s a worldwide problem. So worldwide estimated is over 45 million people are enslaved today. And I’ve seen faces of people currently enslaved and survivors of slavery and it’s faces of people like you and me.

Studio – John Dickson:

I’m speaking with Carolee Halmez, the head of International Justice Mission, IJM. Carolee has just returned from Cambodia, where cyber sex trafficking in particular is becoming an increasing issue.

Caroly Houmes:
Sometimes we think of slavery and we think, oh, at least they’ve got a job, or at least they’ve got children contribute to the households and they’re poor, so they’ve got to do something. Um, whereas slavery is actually, it’s taking away all the rights of a human being and taking away the humanness of a person. Um, and so. As I, I’ve been at several locations across the globe and you just, you wouldn’t be able to tell there are no chains or, um, maybe even no walls in some occasions, um, but it’s the coercion and the violence that it makes it impossible for people to leave. And it’s happening because we allow it to happen, right? It’s a demand from our side sometimes as consumers, um, but we also allow it to happen, um, because it’s actually illegal. Um, in almost every place around the world, and yet laws are not enforced.

John Dickson:
Where are the real pressure points around the world?

Caroly Houmes:
So half the world’s slaves in bonded labor live in India. So that’s the country that has, yeah, half the world’s slaves in bonded labor. Um, and so, and then countries around India as well, Cambodia, um. Myanmar, here in Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Thailand, but you know, there’s people living in slavery here in Australia too. It’s a smaller number and different reasons, but yeah, it’s a global problem.

John Dickson:

But it’s the Philippines that is considered the hotspot for cyber sex trafficking, a form of modern slavery where children are abused over a webcam.

Caroly Houmes:
The Philippines is a country where vulnerability is high. Um, there is like almost every household has access to internet. So they’ve got a really good breach of wifi and they speak English really well, which, and so those two easy things, which could actually make them, it’s actually would be a good thing for them, um, makes them very vulnerable for this crime. And so they have been vulnerable in the past for exploitation of children in brothels where, you know, and we know the stories of sex tourism and perpetrators from the West coming in and, and just, it’s, it’s easier and cheaper to go to brothels there than it’s here. And so we’ve heard those stories. This is a whole new crime where it’s even more easier for perpetrators because they don’t even have to leave their house and they can exploit and abuse the children all the way from Australia while at the same time it’s life happening in a house somewhere in Cebu or somewhere in Manila.

John Dickson:

Officials in the Philippines received 60, 000 reports of online child sexual exploitation in 2018, almost 20, 000 more than the previous year. In Australia, the federal police are working with IJM to stop Australian citizens fueling the trafficking as consumers of child internet pornography. Australian law enforcement agencies have also joined with the Philippine Internet Crimes Against Children Centre, a collective effort for law enforcement representatives from the Philippines, Australia, the United Kingdom, and International Justice Mission, to try and prevent the online exploitation of children. IJM has been working in the Philippines for many years, working to stop sexual slavery in brothels where Westerners, including many Australians, would visit the Philippines. Jacob Sarkodee, who also works at IJM, tells me that their work was so successful, uh, that the perpetrators had to tackle a new business model. Uh, now people don’t even have to travel to the Philippines to get what they’re looking for. It’s made available.

John Dickson:
Can you take us through the process from discovering that there’s a child being abused from a computer through to tracking down that child in one of the thousands of islands of the Philippines? 

Jacob Sarkodee:
You’re finding a needle in a haystack. So, we call this form of slavery cybersex trafficking, um, or specifically the online sexual exploitation of children. This could be typically live streamed abuse of children commissioned by Westerners, um, Australians, Americans, people in Europe, uh, that essentially involves a couple of different parties. So there is the, there’s the Australian, um, pedophile who makes contact with, um, the trafficker in the Philippines. Uh, that trafficker can be, uh, could be a mother, could be an auntie, uncle, uh, a relative, a close associate of, of children. And essentially there’s, there’s an exchange that takes place, uh, often on like public forums. You know, some of the big providers like Facebook or other internet platforms. Basically what happens is a perpetrator in Australia can commission for as little as 20 a live sex show of any level of degradation of a child in the Philippines. And the higher the price, the more violent. The more grotesque the, um, uh, the abuse of the children and, uh, that mother or auntie or the trafficker in the Philippines.

Studio – John Dickson:

It feels like these guys are chipping away at an enormous iceberg. You’ve got thousands of tip offs about this crime. Thousands more than the local authorities can handle. And there are more and more perpetrators. In the Western world, more people are looking online for this content. And then in the Philippines, more people are realising that actually it’s a pretty easy crime to set up. All a perpetrator needs is an internet connection. And a phone.

Jacob Sarkodee:
They estimate as many as 4, 000 a month cyber tips come from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the U.S. alone. In this country where the law enforcement, the resources are nowhere near the level of us, they’re just overwhelmed. Where to start? Millions of images of children. Who? How do we do that? So we, we have a special forensic incident crimes against children specialist who help. to build the capacity of these local law enforcement. And if, for example, the Australian Federal Police finds a case of a pedophile here, they’ll share that information, share the details, um, with our colleagues in the Philippines. And essentially what we do is we use that information to set up an operation where the trafficker believes there’s another show that’s about to take place. And up until that point, before the exploitation is actually, um, potentially going to take place, We work with the Philippines local authorities with local social workers and lawyers to then put together an operation which removes the children from abuse and arrests the perpetrator.

Studio – John Dickson:

That triggers another long process, says Jacob. The court process is lengthy and throughout it all, IJM’s primary concern is the children involved. Protecting them from having to testify where possible, and ensuring that they have access to the treatment, to the healing that they need from their ordeal. After the break, we’ll hear from two Christian pastors on the ground in the Philippines, whose eyes We’re open to this evil in their own communities. And who decided in their separate ways to do something about it.

Break

MEDIA:

For others, including a one year old girl, we will save in a safe home, which has encouraged me to start a new beginning. I realized that God has a good gift for me. Taking small step forward. I have, I have found strength in God. I’m now starting to dream again. I’m under homeschooling program.

Studio – John Dickson:

That’s Cassie again. We heard her at the top of the episode. Cassie spent several years with her recruiter, a neighbour who lured her and her sister into an intricate web of online sexual exploitation. He’d offered them a better life, including sending them to a private school. But behind the veneer, the girls were exploited. They were forced to pose naked in front of the camera. Sometimes they were raped. This perpetrator was caught. In 2014, Cassie’s neighbour was convicted of rape, sex trafficking and cybercrimes. He faces a lifetime in jail. It was a precedent setting case, says IGN. To stop something like this from happening to girls like Cassie, IJM have been working on raising awareness of the online sexual exploitation of children. And they’ve been working, perhaps surprisingly, through churches. 

Glenn De Guzman:
I didn’t in the beginning, really think this kind of evil, that’s what I call it, exists at all. I’m a father of three.

Studio – John Dickson:

That’s Glenn de Guzman. He’s a pastor in the Philippines who now works on the ground with IJM, mobilizing churches to get involved in raising awareness of cybersex trafficking and trying to help families avoid falling into this awful trap.

Glenn De Guzman:
My eldest is only 12 years old. My youngest is 8 years old. And we started engaging in OSEC back in 2016. So my kids then were much younger. And I had no idea that this crime of online sexual exploitation of children or cyber sex in most Western countries actually exists, victimizing children that are in the age of my children. So um, what happened was, uh, IJM hired me to be the head of security whose role specifically was to drive. The rescue van. The rescue van is the vehicle where children are loaded, are taken once, the instant they were rescued, taken from places where they were being abused and exploited. The police and the social workers will place them. On the rescue van, I have had to drive that rescue van to a safe place. So any moment there will be like four, five, even seven children screaming, crying, terrified children. They didn’t know what was happening. They thought they were being arrested. Right? And they were not. They, they had no idea that they were being actually exploited and abused and all of that. I said, there was all of that going on behind me and I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t do anything about it. The only thing I could do was cry. That’s the only thing I could do. I did that for two years. It was when they made me church mobilization manager that I understood. Why I needed those two years of experience. I realized God wanted me to see this evil with my own eyes. You know, it’s one thing to read about this thing, from reports, you know, from paper, that’s one thing. But when you’re confronted by it, in person, on your face, it will change you. The youngest that we’ve rescued was a two month old baby. The instant we heard about that incident, we were all in the office. One of our guys walked in and tells us, We’re rescuing a baby. Two month old baby. We broke down. We broke down. And the kind of horror That was being perpetrated against this baby. Nothing but demonic.

Studio – John Dickson:

What I wanted to know is what most parents are probably asking at this point. How does your child end up in this horror?

Glenn De Guzman:
They’re very scheming about these things. And this is what, based on what we’ve seen. There’s a process of grooming both the parents and the child. And so what happens, oh that’s a beautiful girl. Can I take a photo of your, of your daughter? Can I take a photo of your son? Here’s 50, right? Well, that 50, that’s a lot of money, John, in the Philippines. That’s basically how it starts. And then they go, Oh, by the way, you know what? We have some clothing that we think your daughter might be a good fit to model it. There’s always that exchange, you know, 50 or 100. That’s how pretty much that escalates until, you know, I, I would suppose the poor mother would develop some kind of dependency on this source of income. You know, you add to that the, the idea, the misunderstanding, uh, of parents to think that kids are not really being abused. Nobody’s touching them. You know, there, there’s nothing physical being. done against them. It’s just me taking a video, taking a photo. Believe it or not, you know, we’ve heard parents say, what’s wrong with that? We’ve heard parents say, what’s wrong with that? They don’t, they don’t really know. 70 percent of our cases, John, is perpetrated by parents. somebody very close to the child. We, so far, we don’t have any, I’m not aware of any case where a child was taken, or anything like that. But, there’s cases when someone from within the community would have the children come to their home and The parents would think like, you know, their, their child is just going to a neighbor’s house to watch TV, to, to do something, right?

Caroly Houmes:
I think we as Westerners sometimes think, well, at least they’re not in a brothel, and at least they’re safe at home, and at least they can go to school. It, it’s, to me it’s even worse because home is not safe because it’s their own neighbors, it’s their own aunties and uncles, sometimes it’s their own parents. And the abuse is so much worse, the children are so much younger, it’s siblings and they have to, they have to do things that their mind and their bodies can’t even comprehend yet. It’s real abuse.

Studio – John Dickson:

When Glenn moved into this role, uh, going out to local churches to raise awareness of cyber sex trafficking, he quickly realized that it was a really difficult issue to talk about. I was very struck by what he said. In the Philippines, he said, family is everything.

Glenn De Guzman:
It’s very difficult to talk to Filipino pastors about this kind of situation because for every child that’s rescued, that means For the most part, a mother will go to jail and a child will be separated from the family. And that is something very counter cultural. Something that’s, that’s against what we value as a people. Suddenly, it is as if, it is as if you are asking churches to participate in something that breaks the family.

Studio – John Dickson:

It took Glenn almost two years to find the right message for churches about the primary importance of protecting children against this crime. And he goes into it in quite detail, but he said something that really stuck with me. It dawned on him that the cross, Jesus death on the cross was not just about love and mercy. It was also about justice. God is not just letting people off the hook. He is actually sending Christ to bear the judgment. And so as a pastor, thinking this theologically, he thought, oh my goodness, God cares for justice. It isn’t just about mercy and love. And sitting there, having thought about theology for a few years, I um, I was really struck by it. Anyway, he tells me that he prayed and thought and spoke to people. He prayed and thought and spoke to people. And eventually, the doors opened. Churches began inviting him to speak, and churches began asking the question, What can we do?

Stephen Gualberto:
I am Steven Gualberto from the Philippines, and I serve as the I’m a field strategy coordinator for the Church of the Nazarene in the Philippines and Micronesia, and I’m also a local, uh, I’m a pastor of a local, uh, Nazarene congregation. We invited, uh, International Justice Mission to talk about human trafficking, basically. But instead of them talking about human trafficking, they specifically talk about a modern day type of slavery, uh, which is the online sexual exploitation of children. And through their

Studio – John Dickson:

Stephen says that his church, the Church of the Nazarene in the Philippines, pretty big there, uh, began to learn more and more about the online exploitation of children throughout the country. And they felt convicted to do something about it. First, the church began running educational programs in the local schools, uh, telling the students how to avoid being in a situation where they might get trafficked. And they helped teachers identify vulnerable students and help them work out how to spot someone.

Stephen Gualberto:
Well, we keep on challenging ourselves, what can we do more, uh, you know, uh, to help combat this, um, uh, issue. So we have a meeting with International Justice Mission and ask, uh, them, in your fight against, uh, OSAC, or Online Sexual Exploitation of Children, where is the gap? And immediately they answer, an assessment center. And, um, immediately the Lord has just, uh, you know, uh, give us another vision of how can the church engage.

John Dickson:

The first assessment center is called Shechem House for children who have been rescued from online sexual exploitation. It was opened just over a year ago and has 12 children so far come through its doors in need of healing. Stephen tells me that that healing involves extensive psychological and medical assessments.

Stephen Gualberto:
They are there for an average of three months. Within the three months period, we want to make sure that we have already a plan what to do with the child, you know, after the assessment.

Studio – John Dickson:

Because so many of these children have been drawn into this form of slavery through a family member, many of them can’t go back home. They might have to be fostered out to another family, often a church family. Or sometimes, says Stephen, they’re sent to a long term institution like an orphanage. The thing that struck me is that although they’re rescued from one hell, their lives have a long, long road ahead.

John Dickson:
I do want to know how you cope knowing what you know, like emotionally, how you seem very calm. How are you not screaming?

Caroly Houmes:
Yeah, there are times that I do, um, or there are times that I feel like I, that I can’t breathe when I read a story. Um, or when I, when I see the faces or when I have the opportunity to actually meet them. I mean, there are all these things, right, that you can do to have, you know, to actually. To cope, like the good things to do for your body or for your spiritual well being. How I cope mostly is by actually letting it in, but also by being wise when I can’t let it in. Um, and so, and when I do let it in that I, that I know that I need time after that to, to cry, or to at least have two people that I can tell all the details to, because otherwise it will be inside of me, but I need to let it out.

John Dickson:

Let’s press pause. I’ve got a five minute Jesus for you. What has freeing slaves got to do with the original Christian story? Probably quite a lot, and not much of it is known. Uh, way back in the first century, when Jesus preached his first sermon, according to Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 4, he actually proclaimed a message of Freedom for captives, he gets up in the synagogue of his home, Nazareth, and reads this passage of scripture from the much earlier book, Isaiah, it goes like this. The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. And then Luke says, Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Jesus first Sermon based on Isaiah 61 is about how the good news that he brings into the world frees people, brings sight to the blind, uh, frees the captives, releases people from oppression. Now, first and foremost, he’s speaking about what God will do in the future. Kingdom, that’s when God will bring justice. That was how the historical Jesus thought of things. The kingdom is yet to come, but the twist on all of this. And the reason Jesus says this is fulfilled in your hearing today is that Jesus also said, quite unlike many of his contemporaries, that that kingdom could be glimpsed. Now in the person of Jesus and wherever his disciples enact that vision of a future kingdom because justice is coming They get busy with justice now because freedom and love are coming They get busy doing freedom and love now and we see the evidence of this as the decades and centuries roll on Uh, by the time of the Apostle Paul, so now we’re sort of the 50s AD, 20 or so years after Jesus, we begin to see a little bit of reflection on slavery. I know people usually say, Oh, the New Testament endorses slavery. That’s not quite the case. The New Testament is written by people who couldn’t change the Roman Empire. They’re too low down the pecking order for that. But what they’re trying to do is adjust slavery within their own community. So slaves are told to honor their masters, but masters are told to treat their slaves as equals. And then there are a couple of hints in Paul’s letters that if you can get your freedom, which was very difficult in the ancient world, then Go for it. So there’s already a slight critique in the New Testament of the practice of slavery. But by the second century, we begin to see texts indicate that Christians are becoming more numerous, a little more confident. They still don’t have power, but they have innovation. And there’s a text called the Shepherd of Hermas. I don’t need to go into the details, but it’s from the middle of the second century written in Rome that indicates that any wealthy Christians should use their money. Not to build houses and saunas out the back of their home, but actually to purchase slaves they hear in the local area are being abused by non Christian masters, and the instruction is basically to bring them into your family and treat them as genuine human beings. They didn’t end slavery. But they were trying to overturn it in the best way they could. But by the 5th century, things begin to get super interesting. There’s amazing evidence from St. Augustine that in the 5th century, churches were regularly freeing slaves from slave traders who came into the North African ports. And this was part of the church’s regular ministry. In fact, Augustine says they’re doing this so often that it’s almost bankrupting the church. Augustine writes a letter, which we have, that tells how, on one occasion, they freed a hundred or more slaves from these slave ships, brought them to the church, and began to hear their stories, as they also fed them and clothed them, before secreting them away. But when they heard their stories, Augustine says, They all fell down and wept. Listen to this. About four months prior to my writing this, there were brought in people assembled from various regions, and especially Numidia, by the Galatian dealers, for they either monopolize the trade or apply themselves to it with special relish, with a view to their being shipped out through the port of Hippo. There was not lacking a believer aware of our custom in acts of mercy of this type who reported it to the church. Immediately, 120 people were liberated by our members, partly from the ship onto which they had been loaded, and partly from the place where they had been secreted prior to loading. Hardly anyone could keep back tears on hearing the different stories about how they’d been kidnapped or press ganged before being handed over to the Galatians. What’s so amazing about this letter is that it seems it was customary, a regular church outing to liberate men, women and children from the slave ships that came into the port of Hippo. The operation was costly and Augustine says that it was pretty much bankrupting the local churches. It’s true that Christians didn’t overthrow the scourge of slavery for many more centuries, not until the work of William Wilberforce. But it’s equally true. They were the only ones doing something practical to subvert it. You can press play now.

John Dickson:
Does the church have a special role in all of this?

Caroly Houmes:
Yes. Yes, they do. And I’ve actually been really encouraged by churches here in Australia and by churches on the ground. When I started with iGEM, which was ten years ago, it was a topic that wasn’t well known yet. Overall, the topic of trafficking and slavery, but also just seeing how, what the Bible says about justice. And, um, we, we talk about poverty and, um, but that was such a new topic. And actually in that 10 years time, there’s, I see a, I see a. big change within the churches where so many churches that I’ve, that I’ve met actually embraced this biblical mandate that we have and have not shied away from it because it’s easier, I think, to help people in poverty where this is, this is such a dark topic, right? And so it’s, it’s more complicated. Um, but I’ve seen so many churches step up and that’s just been really encouraging. I think we do have a role to play as churches because I think it’s ultimately, um, it’s yeah. the way to preach the gospel. Um, it’s showing a world that there is a God and that he hears the cries and that we as his people hear the cries and that we actually are God’s hand and feet on this earth. I think if, if, if the Bible talks about darkness and letting your light shine, then this is the place to do it. Where the darkness is most intense, we need to let our light shine and it will shine the most bright because Because it will be noticed that the church is out there. And so we see that, for example, in the Philippines, where the church is actively engaged in this area. They show up at the court hearings. They show up at the rescue operations. They show up in the aftercare. And the Australian Church can do the same thing.

Studio – John Dickson:

International Justice Mission is the largest anti slavery organization in the world. And they’re doing really serious work with police agencies, both in Australia and overseas, to fight. And there are other Christian organisations working to end modern slavery. There’s A21, there’s ACRAF, which is the Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans. Really, that’s the name. Uh, they’re just two that come to mind. So far, IJM have conducted 157 rescue operations and rescued 527 victims. They’ve assisted in the arrest of 224 suspects and the conviction of 69 perpetrators of online sexual exploitation of children. And while 77 percent of these perpetrators are parents, relatives, close friends, or neighbours of the victim, we’ve also got to remember that perpetrators are also the consumers, the thousands of people on the other side of the screens, here in Oz, paying for this content. Friends, they are paying for this content. My own daughter isn’t much older than Cassie was when she was lured by a neighbor into years of abuse.

MEDIA:

I’m a human trafficking advocate, sharing my experiences with others. I believe in fighting for the rights of the child. This is one of the things I’m thankful for being a victim. I see myself as victorious. Out of all the bad things that happened something good come out of it I’m here in front of you sharing how my life has changed with God’s mercy And of course with people like you who are always willing to help.

Undeceptions theme