Mama Fatima Singhateh, special rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, concluded an 11-day visit to the country on Friday, during which she met with government officials, UN agencies, civil society representatives, religious leaders, diplomats and local boys and girls.
She hailed a recently passed law that requires social media platforms and internet service providers to step up their efforts to combat the sexual abuse of young people.
Crime detection system
Ms Singhateh was also encouraged by best practices such as running a center offering one-stop medical, psychiatric and social services, but stressed the need for further action.
“The Philippines needs to establish a robust system for detecting crimes, handling complaints and improving the capacity of officials and social workers involved in child protection to provide meaningful support and rehabilitation to victims and survivors,” she said said.
The legal expert called on the government and stakeholders to step up efforts to combat child trafficking, child marriage, sale of children through illegal adoption, sexual exploitation of children linked to travel and tourism, and teenage pregnancy.
Support vulnerable children
For example, she pointed out that the laws lack explicit legal provisions to punish the sexual exploitation of children in the travel and tourism industry.
“Officials in this sector do not seem to have sufficient information on the issues, scope and manifestations of sexual exploitation related to travel and tourism, they need extensive training and awareness-raising on the subject,” she said in a statement.
Ms Singhateh has highlighted gaps and challenges and recommended the development of centralised, accurate, disaggregated data on incidents and cases of child sexual abuse and exploitation.
She added that more attention needs to be paid to the issue of sexual exploitation related to tourism and transactional sex.
Authorities have also been urged to expand support for vulnerable groups, including children with disabilities and members of indigenous, ethnic and minority communities.
“It is important to allocate adequate resources and take a child-centred, trauma-informed, age- and gender-sensitive approach to mitigate increased risks for vulnerable children,” she said.
About UN rapporteurs
Special rapporteurs like Ms. Singhateh are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in genf.
These experts are tasked with monitoring and reporting on specific country situations or thematic issues.
They are independent of any government or organization, act in their individual capacity and are neither UN employees nor paid for their work.
Ms Singhateh will report to the Council in March on her findings and recommendations.
