13 year-old student falls prey to sexual abuse in exchange for a gadget to be used in online classes

A 13 year-old student falls victim to abuse and sexual exploitation in exchange for a cellphone.

Photo credit: dailymail.co.uk

The child's mother works as a manicurists after losing her regular job as a canteen staff because of the pandemic. She went home and learned that her child had left home and was not alarmed, expecting her child will go home eventually.

The mother started to worry when the barangay's sirens began to go off, signalling the start of the curfew. She asked her eldest daughter to look for her sister.

They learned through a friend of her missing daughter that her child left with an older man, who promised to give her a cellphone that she could use for distance learning in the coming school year.

The mother said in an interview that her child wondered how they could study online schooling when she can't afford to buy them a cellphone to use.

Her child met the 31-year-old man through Facebook using her mother’s keypad phone.

The mother added that she didn’t know her daughter was thinking of a way to help. She didn’t open up how she felt and clueless of what her daughter is thinking.

With the help of her daughters friend, authorities were able to conduct an entrapment operation, leading to the child's rescue and the arrest of the man who supposedly abducted her. A medical check later revealed that she was raped. Charges have been filed against the man.

Salinlahi Alliance for Children’s Concerns said that it was just one of the children's online sexual exploitation cases that they are monitoring, some of which were deemed related to the shift to new modes of learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some families or students have resorted to engaging in illicit activities so they could earn money for gadgets that would be used for distance learning, said Salinlahi Secretary General Eule Rico Bonganay.

He said that it’s an added burden for families to provide laptop, gadgets and internet for their children who will be studying through online learning. Many parents choose to engage in these kinds of activities in order to provide for their children because there are no alternative sources of income.

But the Department of Education has stressed that there is no need for students to have gadgets in the coming school year since there will be other ways to deliver lessons, such as printed modules, television and radio.

The pandemic and its resulting lockdowns have left companies struggling to stay afloat while others shut down. The country also saw unemployment balloon by 17.7 percent in April, or equivalent to 7.3 million jobless Filipinos.