The New Plague: Online child abuse

The world has experienced many disasters and different types of plagues.

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The most recent was the COVID-19 pandemic and its variants since 2019. We are still battling this viral epidemic. But there is a new plague that is neither organic, bacterial, viral nor chemical. It has been around for the past decade.

Dr. Bernadette Madrid, Ramon Magsaysay Laureate, spoke extemporaneously during the Dr. Jose Albert Memorial Lecture. The topic is close to her heart: Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (OCSAE).

A multi-awarded and respected pediatrician, Dr. Madrid is the Director of Child Protection Network’s Philippine General Hospital-Child Protection Unit (PGH-CPU) which was established decades ago. From a single room in the beginning, there are now more than 150 CPUs and WPUs (Women Protection Units) around the country.

“The new plague has been driven by the seamless integration of digital life into children’s worlds where one in three global internet users are minors. Social media normalizes child sexualization through self-generated imagery influencers, and sexting,” Dr. Madrid explained.

ALARMING STATISTICS

In 2020, a study showed that two million children were subject to grave OCSAE in one year.

Globally, 300 million children are affected. One case is reported every second. One in eight children face nonconsensual image offenses and solicitation.

Children are “natives” of the internet, without boundaries between their online and offline lives. The pandemic exacerbated this 21st century phenomenon. People (adults and children) were in lockdown and stressed. “The ecological system is a traditional microsystem consisting of family, peers, and school. This environment has now been invaded by a techno-subsystem (digital world) that surrounds children more closely than the family,” said Dr. Madrid.