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Philippines Parents Exploiting their Children as COVID Job Losses Mount

Philippines Parents Exploiting their Children as COVID Job Losses Mount

Child exploitation is surging this year in the Philippines, where parents have lost jobs during strict covd-19 shutdowns. Allowing their children to work the sex trade, often through online connections, activists and police officials say.

Officials in the Philippines believe COVID-19 is fueling an increase in online sexual exploitation of children, the government’s Commission on Human Rights said in September. UNICEF had already described the Philippines four years ago as “the global epicenter of the live-stream sexual abuse trade.”

International advocacy group End Child Prostitution and Trafficking estimates a 264% increase in online sexual abuse and exploitation of children during the pandemic, the domestic news website Manila Bulletin reports.

“The increasing cases of children in prostitution is alarming,” said Maria Teresa Dela Rosa, president of the National Association of Social Work Education advocacy group in the southern city Davao.

“Parents, out of poverty, are pimping their children, even using the online platforms,” she said.

Stay-home orders enforced at the neighborhood level since April have made it tough for adults to keep or find jobs. The Philippine jobless rate was 10% in July, up from 5.4% a year earlier.

Philippines online sexual exploitation of children

Philippine Police Threaten to Cane Covid-19 Rule Violators

Child exploitation is happening largely at home, often involving fathers, stepfathers, uncles or older brothers, Dela Rosa said. Now adults in the family are helping their children use the internet to set up paid sex with people from outside the home, a source of family income, she said. The Internets prevalence facilitates advertising, finding customers and getting paid, she added.

The Philippines is the largest known source of online sexual exploitation of children, the ASEAN Post, a news and data website covering Southeast Asia, said in an October report.

Dela Rosa cited one reported case where a father found a customer for his 7-year-old boy for the equivalent of a few U.S. dollars and described a 9-year-old girl who was selling sex to taxi drivers.

Quarantined online sex offenders are spending more time online, since it’s more difficult to go out, the commission’s statement says. “Vulnerable” women and children are “confined at home” at the same time with their traffickers, it says.

About 1 in 5 Filipinos lives in poverty. In urban slums without lockdowns, children can normally go outside to sell sundries from street corners or panhandle for change. Some of the poor live in mountain villages that rely on subsistence farming.

Natural disasters help fuel the exploitation of children

Philippines Parents Exploiting their Children as COVID Job Losses Mount

The country’s regular typhoons, earthquakes and volcanic explosions along with COVID-19 have made poverty more acute, pushing children toward prostitution, experts believe.

“This normally happens when we have disasters and now with the pandemic with many people losing jobs,” said Maria Ela Atienza, political science professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman. “Even the children are sacrificed in the process,” she said.

Lory Pabunag remembers the struggle to leave prostitution, her work of eight years. She did it to give “respect” to her three children, now ages 13, 23 and 26. A lot of people leave only when local nonprofit groups arrange other work for them, but those jobs are temporary, she said.

Mothers and children in prostitution are answering pressure to provide for family, she said.

“Being poor and being vulnerable is very risky and very hard, especially for women and especially for children who want to finish studies and wanted to go to school and wanted to help the family,” said Pabunag, 45, who now works for an anti-prostitution, anti-trafficking aid group in the southern Philippines.

Philippine officials must step up enforcement against child prostitution, said Dela Rosa, also a social worker and on the faculty of Ateneo de Davao University. They do too little now to stop online pornography, a vehicle for child prostitution, she said.

Government stimulus spending to ease economic shocks from the pandemic doesn’t go far enough for families, especially those who suddenly need to buy laptops for online schooling, Dela Rosa added. The country approved about $4 billion in stimulus earlier in the year.

To help further, the Philippine Senate is reviewing a bill that would require internet service providers and tourism establishments to report child prostitution crimes.

The human rights commission acknowledges that the crime is now hard to police. “The challenge remains for us to protect the most vulnerable individuals while swiftly prosecuting their abusers,” its September statement says.

“The lack of [child prostitution] data, the inconsistency in data collection, sharing and analysis across agencies, and the complexity of internet-facilitated crimes has made it almost impossible to accurately capture the extent of the crime locally and globally,” the commission says. – VOA

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Bangladesh Supreme Court to Rule on Controversial Job Quotas Amid Nationwide protests

Bangladesh Supreme Court to Rule on Controversial Job Quotas Amid Nationwide protests

(CTN News) – The future of public service hiring regulations, which have provoked national conflicts between police and university students that have resulted in at least 133 fatalities so far, is set to be decided by Bangladesh’s Supreme Court on Sunday, or today.

Later in the day, the nation’s highest court will meet to declare its decision about the controversial job quotas—either in favor of or against their elimination.

This week’s protests over politically motivated admission quotas for highly sought-after government posts turned into some of the worst instability during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s watch.

Due to the ongoing turmoil, a curfew has been in place since Friday. In addition, the government has declared a two-day holiday during which all offices and institutions would be closed.

After riot police were unable to restore order, soldiers are now policing cities throughout Bangladesh, and since Thursday, there has been a statewide internet blackout that has severely limited the flow of information to the outside world.

SEE ALSO: Nearly 1,000 Indian Students Return from Bangladesh Amid Deadly Unrest Over Job Quota System

Hasina made hints to the public this week that the plan will be abandoned, which comes after her opponents accuse her government of using the judiciary to further its own agenda.

However, a positive decision is unlikely to calm the nation’s simmering rage in the wake of the intensifying crackdown and growing dead toll.

Business owner Hasibul Sheikh, 24, told AFP, “It’s not about the rights of the students anymore,” while observing a Saturday street demonstration in the capital city of Dhaka against a statewide curfew.

“Our demand is one point now, and that’s the resignation of the government,” he stated.

A system that reserves more than half of civil service positions for particular groups, like as children of veterans of the 1971 war, is the driving force behind the upheaval this month.

Hasina, 76, has ruled the nation since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January following a ballot in which there was no real competition, according to critics who claim the program helps families who support her.

Rights organizations accuse Hasina’s government of abusing state institutions, including as the extrajudicial assassination of opposition activists, in order to strengthen its grasp on power and quell dissent.

Bangladesh’s 170 million people lack access to sufficient employment possibilities, therefore the quota system is a major cause of anger for recent graduates who are struggling to find work.

“The government’s actions have made the situation worse, rather than trying to address the protesters’ grievances,” Pierre Prakash, Asia director of Crisis Group, told AFP.

After a week of increasing violence, Hasina canceled her intentions to depart the nation on Sunday for a diplomatic trip to Spain and Brazil.

Source: The Indian Express

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Pakistani Government Plans to Ban PTI

Pakistani Government Plans to Ban PTI

(CTN News) – The Pakistani government has announced measures to outlaw Pakistan Terheek-e-Insaf (PTI), the party of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar made the declaration on Monday, only days after the Supreme Court declared the PTI eligible for a share of reserved seats in national and provincial assemblies.

After reviewing all relevant information, the government has decided to ban PTI. “We will file a case to ban the party,” he said, citing claims such as inciting violent protests last year and leaking confidential information.

Tarar stated that the case would be moved to the Supreme Court.

He also stated that the government intended to file treason charges against Khan and two other senior party leaders, former President of Pakistan Arif Alvi and ex-Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Qasim Suri, as well as a review appeal against the Supreme Court’s ruling that the PTI should be allocated some assembly seats reserved for women and members of religious minorities.

According to Sayed Zulfiqar Bukhari, a top PTI politician and party spokesperson, the government’s action “betrays their complete panic”.

“After realizing that they could no longer threaten, compel, or blackmail judges, they decided to make this move through the cabinet. “All of their attempts to stop us have been declared illegal by the courts,” he stated.

Last week, the Supreme Court recognized the PTI as a political party and confirmed that the party’s lack of an electoral emblem did not affect its legal right to field candidates.

The verdict was in response to the PTI being barred from competing in parliamentary elections in February using its party emblem, the cricket bat, forcing it to field candidates as independents.

Despite the setback, PTI-backed candidates emerged as the largest parliamentary bloc, winning 93 seats.

After Khan declined to cooperate with his political opponents, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) formed a coalition government with other smaller parties.

Ex-Governor Sindh Zubair, who formerly served in the PMLN, stated that the government’s action was in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling last week and warned of political upheaval ahead.

“The powers that be are trying to disenfranchise the largest majority of voters of the country, who voted for PTI,” he disclosed to Al Jazeera.

Khan was appointed prime minister in August 2018 but was dismissed from power in April 2022 after a parliamentary vote of no-confidence.

The cricketer-turned-politician has since faced a slew of legal issues, including charges of misplacing and leaking the contents of a confidential cable delivered to Islamabad by Pakistan’s then-ambassador in the US in 2022.

Khan has continually disputed the charge, claiming that the dossier contained evidence that his resignation as prime minister was orchestrated by his political opponents and the country’s powerful military, with assistance from the US administration. Both Washington and Pakistan’s army deny the accusation.

Despite multiple recent court verdicts in his favor, Khan has been in prison since August of last year.

Source: Aljazeera

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NAB Re-Arrests Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi After Iddat Case Conviction Overturned

NAB Re-Arrests Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi After Iddat Case Conviction Overturned

(CTN News) – Former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, were acquitted in the Iddat case by a sessions court on Saturday, less than 24 hours after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the PTI in reserved seats.

However, their relief was short-lived when Imran Khan was detained by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for selling official goods. Bushra Bibi was also rearrested in this case while being released from Adiala Jail’s Gate No. 3.

According to sources, the NAB detained Bushra Bibi after the bureau’s chairman issued arrest warrants for her and Imran Khan. Both are to be investigated in Adiala Jail.

Opposition leader Omar Ayub Khan condemned Bushra Bibi’s imprisonment and criticized the Adiala Jail administration. He also cautioned the jail superintendent of the repercussions and announced that a privilege motion would be filed against him.

Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi were acquitted in the Iddat case after Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Mohammad Afzal Majoka reversed their previous verdict, which sentenced them to seven years in prison on February 3, five days before the general election.

Imran Khan’s lawyers, Usman Gill and Zaheer Abbas, were in court when the verdict was pronounced.

In the 28-page ruling, Judge Majoka rejected Khawar Fareed Maneka, Bushra Bibi’s ex-husband,’s arguments that Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi’s nikah was illegally performed and that Mr. Maneka was denied Buju (reconciliation rights) under religious law.

The court also rejected the allegation of fornication under provision 496-B of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), stating that no charge was filed under this provision against both Imran Khan and his spouse “because there was no evidence of a second witness”. The trial court heard only one witness, Mr Maneka’s domestic servant.

“In these circumstances, it cannot be said that the appellants committed fornication,” the judge wrote. Regarding the charge of contracting marriage fraudulently during the Iddat period, the judge found that in a video given as evidence during the trial, Mr. Maneka lauded his ex-wife, Bushra Bibi, and “deposed that his ex-wife is a pious lady.”

The magistrate inquired about “how this witness [Mr Maneka] can claim that the appellant No. 2 [Bushra Bibi] committed fraud with him” .

The court announced its decision: “From a perusal of Section 496 PPC and the above-mentioned esteemed citations, this court is of the view that the appellants have not gone through any marriage ceremony fraudulently or with dishonest intention because none of the parties claimed that nikah was not performed and fraudulently he or she was supposed to believe that marriage ceremony was solemnised.”

The court judgment added: “In the instant instance, it is the complainant’s case that the appellants’ nikah was done on January 1, 2018, followed by the second nikah in February 2018. By no stretch of the imagination, it was a marriage with dishonest or deceptive intentions.”

Regarding Mr. Maneka’s claim that he was denied reconciliation rights and so deceived by Imran Khan and Ms. Bibi, the court noted that during cross-examination, Mr. Maneka stated that he learned of the appellants’ marriage on the second day of their nikah.

Before submitting the complaint, the judge questioned why Mr Maneka had been silent on his reconciliation rights for six years.

The judge stated, “The complainant has failed to prove his case against the appellants.” As a result, both appeals filed by appellants No. 1 [Imran Khan] and No. 2 [Bushra Bibi] are accepted, the judgment of the learned trial court of February 3, 2024, is overturned, and both appellants are acquitted of the accusation.”

The court ordered their freedom unless they needed to be imprisoned in other cases.

Source: DAWN

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