Nearly half a million children in the Philippines were trafficked to produce child sexual exploitation material (CSEM). This alarming statistic is from the groundbreaking Scale of Harm prevalence study by IJM and the University of Nottingham Rights Lab. More than half of the payments for CSEM to the Philippines came from the United States. Survivors and IJM are calling on leaders across governments, tech companies and financial institutions to protect children and prevent this growing problem from escalating further.
Vanessa Bautista, Global Survivor Network Leader and advocate, and John Tanagho, Executive Director of IJM’s Center to End Online Exploitation of Children, testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance. The hearing was part of Congress's broader effort to investigate and address threats against children worldwide. Together John and Vanessa advocated for actionable solutions, including bills like the EARN IT Act, aimed at prompting action from social media companies and improving critical response infrastructure to combat this crime.
After five years of collaboration with its partners, IJM Bolivia achieved a significant milestone by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Bolivian National Ministry of Justice. Together, they're taking a resolute step towards protecting women and children from physical and sexual violence, providing trauma-informed care, and enhancing access to justice in Bolivia.
In a powerful testimony Josephine Aparo, a founding member of the Global Survivor Network and IJM Ghana staff, appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations.
With conviction she said, "We have a choice: We can either ignore it as a problem far away, or we can choose to act so that children are protected from violence."
A group of young leaders in South Asia is launching a survivor network dedicated to protecting thousands of children and families from human trafficking and bonded labor. Among them is Santoshini Rout, a survivor of bonded labor in a brick kiln who is the newly elected president of this survivor network.
A co-founder of FlyteVu, a creative agency that has partnered with IJM, writes an opinion in Forbes that the rising challenge of online human trafficking needs the collective strength of both business and tech communities.
