Philippine court comes down hard on child-abusing momNovember 20, 2023

32-year-old woman gets four life terms for sexually abusing 6-year-old son,1-year-old girl online for profit

A court in the Philippines has sentenced a 32-year-old mother to four life terms in prison for exploiting her six-year-old son and one-year-old girl for profit in one of the strongest penalties against online sexual abuse of children.

The conviction is another “testament to the government’s relentless effort” in ending trafficking and online sexual abuse of children, said regional prosecutor Janet Grace Dalisay-Fabrero.

The court decision, dated Oct. 16, was made public on Nov. 15 by the International Justice Mission (IJM), a non-governmental organization that deals with online child abuse in the country.

Live-streaming sex content using children is reported to be prevalent in the Catholic-majority Philippines because of its active underground sex industry, robust remittance infrastructure, inexpensive internet access, and English language proficiency, reports say.

Until November this year, police rescued 1,198 victims, arrested 372 suspects, and convicted 212 for child sex abuse, according to local media reports.

Nearly 500,000 children were sexually abused online in the Philippines last year, with nearly 250,000 adults perpetrating it, media estimates show.

Traffickers are often relatives of the children — parents, family members, or close friends. 

Child rights activists say general society and the government need to work together to end online sex abuse of children.

On Aug. 23, 2022, the government said it had chalked out a “comprehensive approach” to address the problem.

The government has partnered with telecommunications companies and internet service providers to filter the payment for sex abuse content.

According to IJM, its partnership with the authorities has “led to a dramatic decrease” in the trafficking of children in bars and brothels by up to 30 percent in some cities.

The Catholic church in the country has dedicated a Sunday as the National Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking.

https://www.ucanews.com/news/philippine-court-comes-down-hard-on-child-abusing-mom/103315

Catholic dioceses are declaring bankruptcy. Abuse survivors say it’s a ‘way to silence’ them

The insolvency of California dioceses has caused some cases be put on hold, even as a $175m cathedral has risen over Oakland

In Oakland, California, the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Christ the Light is difficult to miss. Towering over Lake Merritt in the heart of the city, its modernist glass dome reflects the East Bay sun in all directions.

The building, which was completed in 2008 and financed by the Roman Catholic diocese of Oakland, cost $175m. But that price tag confounds Joseph Piscitelli.

In the 1970s, Piscitelli attended a Catholic high school in nearby Richmond, where, from the age of 14, he experienced repeated sexual abuse at the hands of his vice-principal, an ordained priest. For decades, Piscitelli experienced nightmares and panic attacks. Friends who had also been abused turned to drugs and alcohol, and several took their own lives.

In 2003, Piscitelli sued the Salesian College Preparatory high school and the Salesian order, and won. While the cases were decided in his favor in 2006, they had not held leaders at the top accountable. So, in 2020, he filed a new suit, this time against the Oakland diocese.

Then, to Piscitelli’s dismay, the diocese declared bankruptcy in May. As a result, his case was put on an indefinite hold.

“Oakland could get together enough money to build a $200m cathedral not too long ago, but they can’t get the money together to pay the child victims whom they raped for decades,” Piscitelli said. “They’re morally and ethically bankrupt, but they’re not financially bankrupt.”

One by one, various arms of the Catholic church across California have declared bankruptcy, citing an inability to pay damages from large numbers of sexual abuse lawsuits. The dioceses of Santa Rosa and Oakland filed in the spring. The archdiocese of San Francisco followed suit in August, and the diocese of San Diego has shared its plan to do the same in November. The lawsuits come at a time when Catholicism in California is growing – fueled in large part by immigration from Latin America and Asia – while other parts of the US, including former Catholic hubs in the north-east, are seeing their numbers dwindle.

Church bankruptcy declarations are not unprecedented. From Portland to Milwaukee and from Helena to Rochester, dioceses have been declaring – and emerging from - chapter 11 bankruptcy for nearly two decades. And it isn’t only the Catholic church taking these steps. The Boy Scouts of America likewise sought protections amid thousands of sexual abuse allegations in 2020.

The flood of California suits came after 2019 legislation opened a three-year “look-back window” that would allow survivors of childhood sexual abuse to file suits based on old claims that would normally have fallen outside the statute of limitations. When the window closed last December, more than 2,000 individuals around the state had filed cases against the Catholic church; 330 accusers have sued the Oakland diocese alone.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/12/sex-abuse-catholic-church-bankruptcy-oakland-califonia