Philippine government urges cooperation against child pornography

The Philippine government appealed Tuesday for vigilance and unity in the fight against child pornography and exploitation in the country. Philippine Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Corazon Soliman made the appeal as her office served a total of 150 cases of child pornography and cyber pornography from 2010 to 2013. "I am looking forward to the day that we will no longer have activities like this because there will be no more victims of child sexual abuse. So my plea to everyone is that we should all be vigilant and united against the fight against child-sexual- abuse and commercial child exploitation,"she said. Those who became victims during the past three years were provided with protective custody, psychosocial, legal, financial, educational and spiritual services, Soliman said. The recently-released Terres de Hommes Netherlands exploratory study on the background and psychosocial consequences of web cam tourism in the Philippines revealed that the online child sex tourism trade in the country was flourishing. According to the study, this phenomenon remained undiscovered until 2011 when the country successfully prosecuted its first case against a Swedish national and three Filipinos.