Andrea (not her real name) was 14 years old the first time a
voice over the Internet told her to take her clothes off. She was in a home in
Negros Oriental, lured away from the home she knew in a rural, mountain village
in the Philippines by a cousin who promised her a well-paid job as a babysitter
in the city. She left her impoverished life with the hopes of an opportunity to
earn money to finish high school. To her horror, she instead found herself
another victim of the newest but no less sinister world of sexual exploitation
– cyber-sex trafficking. After arriving at her new home in Negros Oriental,
Andrea found that the new place would be both workplace and prison. “The
windows were covered so it was dark. There was a computer and a camera where
naked girls would say words to seduce their mainly foreign customers” she says.
She also added that customers would ask girls to perform sexually with each
other. These customers paid $56 a minute to watch girls satisfy their sexual
fantasies. The men would type instructions onto a computer and watch the girls
perform the instructed acts via a live camera. As much as Andrea wanted to
return home, her chances of a successful escape were next-to-none as her
employer, an uncle, slept downstairs and kept the front door locked. Convinced
that earning enough money to finish her education was the only way to help her
family out of poverty, Andrea forced herself to work. Andrea's story is
not uncommon in a nation where the conditions -- widespread poverty, an
established sex trade, a predominantly English-speaking, technically-literate
population and widespread Internet access -- have made it easy for crimes like
this to flourish.
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