Transparent cubicles for PC cafés pushed

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Police Office Director Melvin Ramon Buenafe asked the Cebu City Council to pass an ordinance requiring computer cubicles in public computer shops to be transparent to prevent lewd cyber activities leading to cybersex.

“If possible, (computer) enclosures should be transparent so that we can prevent mga cybersex activities,” he said.

This recommendation came after the CCPO received various reports of lewd cyber activities inside Internet cafés throughout the city.

“To prevent those cybersex operations from happening here in Cebu City, we might as well anticipate and recommend for an ordinance” Buenafe said.

He said the CCPO is concerned with protecting young children and women from being exposed to these kinds of activities while leasing computer units.

Computer cubicles can still provide privacy, but operators should know what they are doing inside.

“You can do everything inside… baka mamaya naghuhubad na iyong customer ng Internet café sa harap ng camera” he said.

In some Internet cafés in the city, operators are already restricting users, especially young ones, from visiting lewd websites. But others are still lenient with what their users are seeing.

Meanwhile, the Partido ng Manggagawa said the Department of Social Welfare and Development should go beyond assuming custody of children rescued from cybersex operations and should be actively involved in the promotion of women and children’s rights.

PM-Cebu spokesman Dennis Derige said that they are disturbed by news that some children in Cebu participate in cybersex to augment their family’s income.

Derige said that apart from educating parents and children, the DSWD should also work hand-in-hand with concerned government agencies to provide livelihood for these poor families, saying police action is not the answer to this kind of social problem.

He said that poverty and lack of education on women’s and children’s rights are the reasons why children and women have been lured by cybersex. 

PM added that they also have information that women workers in export processing zones in the province have also been involved in cybersex. Some of these women have reportedly left their jobs as they find engaging in cybersex more lucrative. (FREEMAN)