US buyers spent $7m on child abuse material from Philippines — Report

In 2022, an estimated 500,000 children in the Philippines were trafficked to produce child sexual exploitation material, according to a 2023 study by the International Justice Mission and the University of Nottingham Rights Lab. The study suggested that foreign demand, particularly from men in the United States, fueled the crime.

A CNN report revealed that children were forced by family members and other facilitators to produce sexual content for these foreign customers, most often through livestreams and private online groups. The United States was identified as the leading buyer of this illegal content, with Americans spending over $7 million on it between 2020 and 2022, according to the Philippine Anti-Money Laundering Council.

The abuse was facilitated through encrypted messaging applications and livestreaming services, which enabled it to cross borders. Survivors reported being introduced to online sexual exploitation at a young age, often by relatives seeking to make money from foreign customers. One survivor, known as Kate, began participating in the abuse when she was 13, after her adoptive older sister introduced her to it during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Others, like Isa, were forced by her aunties to participate in livestreamed sexual abuse when they were children. Despite foreign customers driving demand, women within victims' families were frequently implicated in facilitating the abuse. In the United States, 32 out of the 50 women arrested for sexually abusing and exploiting children online were mothers, according to Philippine National Police figures.

Experts have emphasized that foreign customers' demand is a significant factor sustaining the crime, with John Tanagho, executive director of the International Justice Mission's Centre to End Online Sexual Exploitation of Children, stating that the only reason perpetrators abuse and livestream children is because someone in the US is willing to pay for it.