Omar’s plight: When family ceases to be one’s sanctuary

MANILA, Philippines -In 2011, Omar, then 13, along with his younger siblings, were just coming out of the bathroom, still naked and about to dress up for school.While playfully running around their tiny room, one of his sisters Nina was playing games on Facebook. Out of nowhere, a group of police officers swooped into their home, seized their computer, and arrested both their parents.

Turns out, however, that this account from the kids’ mother, Lorna, was not all that happened on that day.

An arresting officer had a strikingly different account: “When we raided the room, three girls, including a three-year old, lay naked in front of the computer, coaxed by their mother to spread their legs wide open. On the monitor were three different webcam screens of old Caucasian men.”

In the mother’s own words, “They (their neighbors) are doing it, not us.” Neighbors, she says, pay P15 per hour to use their computer or share the P1,200 monthly bill for a connection. She was certain that her neighbors were doing “livestream shows” in the confines of their tiny shanties.

A foreign law enforcement agency partner of the Philippines, says that millions of files have been identified as “indecent images of children” across the country. From September 2013 to September 2014 alone, almost 7,000 IP addresses and pedophile chat channels were seen on file-sharing networks  distributing and exchanging sexual images of children mostly of very young age, in the “dark web”.

Agent Sherwin Uy of the Department of Justice’s Office of Cybercrime says an alarming 80 percent of cases or reports they receive have to do with online sexual exploitation of children.

While Cebu, Pampanga, Taguig and Iligan have been tagged as hotspots, law enforcement agencies agree that the problem exists in all major urban and rural areas of the Philippines and even in very remote towns, thanks in large part to easy online access.

Online child sexual exploitation often does not end there. Paul Hopkins of the Australian Federal Police who works with UNICEF and the NBI to capacitate local counterparts and partner agencies, says: “In my experience, consumers of these streamed videos always have the intention to come over to have real, physical sex with their online subjects.”

Since the arrest in 2011, Omar’s mother Lorna has been in detention, pending a decision on her case. A few other women in the facility are similarly charged with facilitating online sexual exploitation of children, some also their own. The women hail from the same community.

Meanwhile, Omar and his siblings are living in a children’s facility where all their needs, including their education, are provided for.

His scar goes beyond the feeling of having been wronged. As the eldest in the family, it was painful for him not to be able to stop his parents from abusing his siblings. “They would gyrate naked and do sexual acts with each other. I would tell my mother to stop but she never did,” he said.

Still, he refuses to testify against his parents in court.

Omar and Nina are lucky to have been rescued, and brave enough to embrace life without their parents.

But while they have adapted well to the rehabilitative programs in their new home, the siblings long to be reunited with their parents.

Grace, one of Omar’s younger sisters, says: “I would still like to be with our parents again, but for now, I prefer to stay here so I can complete my studies. I want to have a proper life before we reunite.”

For survivors of such an ordeal, there is a vague starting point for their long road to reunification: while the shelter has provided them all their needs, experts like the Child Protection Network’s Dr Naomi Poca still believe in parental care and nurture; something she says is irreplaceable. Advocates of child protection, including clinical psychologists, believe so, too.

For now, what may only matter to Omar and Nina and their siblings is to go back to a stable life with their parents as soon as they are released from prison.

Mae, a social worker who helped the children in their rehabilitative programs, said Nina sent her a greeting card last Christmas that ended: “I hope you find it in your heart to forgive our parents.” Proof that despite the terribly wrong things they were made to do, familial love prevails – one that remains unshaken after all.

(Editor’s note: Names have been changed or omitted due to the sensitivity of the issue.)