Communication is key to dealing with child exploitation—child rights organization

When it comes to dealing with cases of child sexual exploitation and trafficking, an effective communications system is crucial, says Carin Van der Hor, country director of Plan International, an organization that works to protect the rights of girl children.

According to a situationer by Miriam College’s Women and Gender Institute (WAGI) commissioned by Plan, commercial sexual exploitation continues to evolve as new forms emerge.

“Parents of children as young as three years old initiate their children to child pornography,” said the report.

“These developments indicate that child protection and anti-child pornography laws must have sufficient budget to enable law enforcers to update crime prevention technologies,” it added.

In an effort to beef up child protection mechanisms in the country, Plan has partnered with telecommunications provider Globe Telecom Inc. in developing an IT-enabled communications system between local government units and child protection agencies.

“One of the major projects we want to do is a hotline in one of our pilot projects in Samar that would primarily use the voice technologies that will enable LGUs to work hand in hand with either the municipal social welfare office or the local Plan International project team,” said Rob Nazal, head of Globe CSR.

Van der Hor did note that child protection in the Philippines “has made great progress.”

Meanwhile, the country has also made progress in the area of education, said Van der Hor.

“In fact, girl children in the Philippines are doing much better in primary education,” she said.

“In secondary education, we’re still not very happy because the net enrollment rate is still around 66 percent. Of course we would like to see that go up for boys and girls to 100 percent,” she added. –KG, GMA News