DCU secures fresh funding for research into online abuse of children in the Philippines
Dr Maggie Brennan has conducted research that has established the pathways to online sexual abuse and exploitation in the Philippines.
Dr Brennan has been working in the field of online child sexual abuse and exploitation for over 20 years. She has led a series of research and policy initiatives to combat this abuse for the G7, European Commission, Interpol, the UK National Crime Agency, and social media providers.
Up to now there has been limited research into looking at how Online Sexual Abuse and Exploition of Children (OSAEC) in the Philippines is facilitated for foreigners who drive the demand for this abuse and exploitation.
The substantial gap in knowledge about the processes involved in OSAEC is a challenge that must be overcome, internationally, in order to better detect, disrupt and prevent these crimes against children.
“With the funding support of the Tech Coalition Safe Online Research Fund and Partners, our research has sought to fill the gap in empirical knowledge,” said Dr Brennan.
“We have established that pathways to online sexual abuse and exploitation in the Philippines, a global epicentre for OSAEC, involve a specific set of behavioural, cultural, and institutional factors and processes. This new knowledge offers opportunities for more effective detection and prevention of these crimes.”
The addtional support of the Tech Coalition Boost Fund, announced by the Safe Online Research Fund at Google today, will, says Dr Brennan, translate this learning into effective tools for communities, and online and financial industries to better detect and prevent harm to children.
Global epicentre
The Philippines has been described by UNICEF as the ‘centre’ of child sex abuse materials production in the world, and further identified as the global epicentre of the live stream sexual abuse trade, in which many of the victims are children.
Despite this challenging situation, there has been limited research into the facilitation of OSAEC by female offenders. A study, led by Dr Brennan, sought to understand the individual, individual, community, social and technological factors that motivate offenders and how these offences are facilitated, particularly via online communities.
The study findings suggest that OSAEC facilitation is frequently financially-motivated, happening within families, and associated with co-dependence between facilitators and victims. Meanwhile, family dysfunction, prosecution challenges and innovation in payments technologies were found to be offence-facilitating factors.
In a follow up study, interviews were carried out with incarcerated Filipina women, which offered insights into how facilitators meet the demand for online abuse of children by foreign perpetrators.
Dr Brennan and colleagues will share findings of this research with online industry professionals, government and academia at the second Trust and Safety Research conference at Stanford University this week.
Combating abuse on online platforms
New European initiatives, such as the EU Digital Services Act, require online platforms to demonstrate that they are meeting with new regulatory requirements to combat online sexual abuse of children. Many companies are working rapidly to introduce internal systems and practices that respond to these new requirements.
There has been an onus placed on online social platforms to combat child abuse taking place on their services, but similar attention hasn’t yet been given to the use of banking, remittance and app-based payment systems which are used for payments linked to OSAEC.
Project findings suggest that, in addition to developing initiatives to assist online social platforms to prevent and disrupt the OSAEC in the Philippines, financial platforms might similarly benefit from evidence-led guidance and resources to support better detection and reporting of suspicious payments linked to OSAEC to ensure that these are identified, investigated, and processed by the relevant authorities.
Dublin City University's School of Applied Psychology wishes to warmly acknowledge the support of its consortium partners in this project: Justice and Care International, The Social Development Research Center at De La Salle University, Manila, as well as that of the International Justice Mission.