Preda Participates in Parliamentary Briefing and Discussion with Members of the Bundestag
July 10, 2021 · By Preda News
Preda Participates in Parliamentary Briefing and Discussion with Members of the Bundestag
Last 19 May 2021, the Preda Foundation represented by its president Francis B. Bermido Jr., participated in an online Parliamentary Briefing and Discussion organized by its partner Missio Aachen. Present during the event were six German parliamentarians and speakers and three members of the German Bundestag, investigative journalist Heike Vowinkel and representatives of the Catholic sector in Germany.
During the discussion, Mr. Bermido said that sex tourism was never really wiped out and with the advent of the pandemic it has mutated and has moved into cyberspace where it is more difficult to address. In the first few months of strict lockdown in the Philippines in 2020, incidents of online sexual abuse and exploitation in the Philippines increased by 264 percent, making the Philippines the global hub of online abuse and exploitation of children.
Mr. Bermido explained that online sexual abuse and exploitation of children (OSAEC) is both a transnational and a national crime. Perpetrators, mostly from developed countries, victimize children in poor countries like the Philippines, but it is highly likely that they move on to actually abuse and exploit children wherever they are. Perpetrators online are real and serious threat to German children, too. He called on governments to mandate Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to install effective blocking software. He also emphasized the importance of greater cooperation between the German Federal Police, EUROPOL and the Philippine Internet Crimes Against Children Center and expressed hope that the crackdown on the site illegal site “Boystown” that had more than 400,000 members will lead to further investigations and arrests of suspected facilitators. He welcomed the bew law in Germany that introduced tougher penalties for those convicted of child sex abuse online and otherwise. Finally, he called for a victim-centered approach to tackling this issue by ensuring that victims are rescued and provided with holistic physio-psychological services.
Preda News.
