Trigger warning: Sexual abuse
MANILA, Philippines — A report by Norway’s National Criminal Investigation Service (Kripos) found that a large portion of online-ordered sexual abuse occurs in the Philippines with underage minors being most of the victims.
In a report dated October 23, Kripos identified the Philippines as the hub of “direct order-based sexual abuse” (DOBO), where minors are exploited in live-streamed abuse at the request of buyers.
The report cites several factors behind this concentration of DOBO cases, including a legacy of commercial sex industries, a reputation as a sex market, and its appeal to traveling sex offenders.
Additional factors include the widespread use of English, developed internet infrastructure, cultural influences, and readily available payment services.
However, the study noted that despite the Philippines being the center of online sexual abuse, it is also possible that the buying and selling of DOBO in other countries operates differently than described in Kripos’ report.
“It’s also possible that countries with populations speaking other global languages, such as French and Spanish, may purchase DOBO from developing countries where these languages are widely spoken,” the report said.
The report covered years 2011 to 2017 which focused on cases involving Norwegian buyers.
Direct order-based sexual abuse
DOBO as a practice involves live-streamed sexual abuse of minors, ordered and paid for by buyers online.
In such cases, buyers not only pay for abuses but may also direct how they are conducted, issuing instructions to the seller either in advance or during the live session.
The transaction terms, including the price, are negotiated before the abuse, with payments made through online platforms, according to the report.
In some instances, technical constraints prevent live streaming; when this happens, sellers may record the abuse and send the footage later—a practice considered equivalent to live-streamed DOBO.
Kripos also classified DOBO as an "organized crime" due to the frequent collaboration among multiple sellers, who often "borrow" exploited children from one another and share chat and payment accounts.
“From Norwegian criminal cases, there is a network of people who collaborate on the sale of dobo, often in combination with directly transmitted sexual content with adults. Such networks of sellers usually spring from personal relationships such as kinship, friendship and neighborhood. The people in such networks contribute to crime in different ways and have different profits,” the report said in Norwegian.
“Examples of cooperation are passing on buyers to other sellers, bartering children who are abused and sharing payment accounts. The sellers have contact with all their buyers on a limited number of communication accounts and therefore sharing such accounts is useful,” it added.
How it is done
Buyers and sellers of DOBO first make contact with pornographic websites where sellers offer live sex shows featuring adults. According to the report, websites give sellers access to a pool of buyers potentially seeking sexual content.
Once a connection is made, the seller and buyer shift their communication to other platforms that offer greater privacy, like messaging apps or dedicated video call services.
In plain English, the seller and buyer talk about the type of abuse they want, which child they want to involve, how much they will pay for the "show," and how they would like to make the payment.
The abuse is live-streamed using various video call services that are easy to use and sometimes offer end-to-end encryption.
During the live stream, buyers frequently give specific instructions on what they want the victim to do. Chat logs obtained by authorities reveal that euphemistic language is used to describe the abuse, possibly as a means to normalize or minimize its severity.
Behind systems of abuse
The report bared that the victims often had familial ties with their “sellers.” In known cases, 41% of the sellers are the biological parents of the victims while 42% are other family members, according to the report.
During multi-child rescue operations, 40% of the children were siblings and 13% shared another family connection.
The report said the median age of the victims being rescued is 11 years old where 86% of the victims are girls while 14% are boys.
According to the report, financial desperation is the primary driver of the abuse. Citing interviews conducted by the Swiss children's rights organization Terre des Hommes, it states that poverty and a lack of basic necessities motivate some families to sell their children for DOBO.
“Many of the children came from families where the parents no longer lived together and faced severe financial difficulties. It was challenging for them to afford basic needs such as food, electricity and school fees. Drug abuse within the family was also reported,” the report said in Norwegian.
The report also attributed close-knit family dynamics to the furtherance of exploitation in the Philippines, where children, influenced by a sense of duty, become vulnerable to adult manipulation.
Exact recruitment methods remain uncertain, according to the report, but messages between sellers and DOBO buyers suggest that most sellers are either the mother or a neighbor of the victim.
“All the children interviewed reported feeling dirty, ashamed, and embarrassed both during and after a dobo abuse. Many of the children also expressed fears of being arrested and that what they had done online would remain there forever,” the report said in Norwegian.
“All the children suggested that being sold as dobo became emotionally easier after the first time. It seems they developed coping strategies that allowed them to escape the negative feelings. Most of the children rationalized their actions by thinking about the money they received,” it added.
What victims are asked to do
According to the report, victims are subjected to various kinds of abuses depending on the buyer’s request.
Some of the cases involve a child who abuses themselves and sometimes a buyer pays a someone else to abuse the child.
However, most of the time, buyers request several children to perform sexual acts on one another.
The report cited instances where one child was asked to play with the seller’s feces or that a dog should join in the abuse.
Customers
Kripos’ parent country, Norway, ranks as one of the Western countries with the highest per capita dobo buyers.
Between January 2018 and January 2023, around 600 Norwegians were identified as potential dobo buyers. Given that perpetrators often commit multiple abuses annually, the actual number of offenses is suspected to be much higher, according to the report.
Among the cases where the sellers have been arrested in the Philippines, these are the number of the following buyers in their certain European countries:
- United Kingdom: 20
- Germany: 15
- Norway: 6
- Netherlands: 5
- France: 4
- Italy: 4
- Sweden: 3
- Austria: 2
- Belgium: 2
- Czech Republic: 2
- Greece: 2
- Ireland: 2
- Spain: 1
- Slovenia: 1
Philstar.com has reached out to the Department of Justice, which currently heads the National Coordination Center against Online Sexual Abuse or Exploitation of Children and Child Sexual Abuse or Exploitation Materials, for a comment about the report's findings, but it has yet to reply.