Investigators
have caught an international pedophile ring that broadcasted Filipino children
being sexually abused for money, authorities have claimed. The operation began
in 2012 and has since resulted in the arrest of 29 people, 11 of them Filipino
nationals who facilitated the abuse, Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA)
released in a stated on January 15. According to NCA, some of the children’s
own family members organized the abuse. The British agency also announced that
fifteen children between the ages of 6 and 15 have been rescued. After
uncovering “indecent videos” on the computer of a registered sex offender,
British police had begun their investigation. This led to the information on
the abuse of the children in the Philippines and on people in other countries
involved in the pedophile ring. Seventeen arrests have been made in the UK,
resulting in five convictions. “Being thousands of miles away makes no
difference to their guilt. In my mind, they are just as responsible for the
abuse of these children as the contact abusers overseas” said Andy Baker,
deputy director of the NCA’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection command.
Children’s rights advocates say that the private nature of technology has
allowed for crimes to take place in a venue that is not yet as accessible to
law enforcement, and thus making it difficult to track down cyber-crimes. In
the Philippines, conditions such as widespread poverty, a booming sex-trade,
literacy in English and technology and widespread internet access have contributed
to the country falling prey to such abuse.
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