08/12/2024
BE AWARE
RA 11930
Municipal Social Welfare and Development (MSWD) Officers conducted an orientation regarding RA 11930, also known as the Anti-Online Sexual Abuse or Exploitation of Children Act and Anti-Child Sexual Abuse/ Exploitation of Materials Act at Sulangan Integrated School (SIS) school ground on December 3.
The orientation was held from 2:00 P.M. to 3:30 P.M. and was attended by the Junior High School (JHS) and Senior High School (SHS) students as well as the other stakeholders of the school.
The orientation began with Ms. Diana Balondro taking attendance and handling initial formalities.
Following that, Social Welfare Officer III, Mr. Fritz R. Tigon, kicked off the session by posing questions related to phones and social media.
The orientation addressed important subjects. The speaker discussed what social media entails, various websites available online, and their benefits and drawbacks.
Moreover, during the discussion, Mr. Tigon highlights the disadvantages of social media, namely account intrusion scams, waste of time, addiction, bullying, Cyber Po*******hy, anti-social behavior, and human trafficking.
Furthermore, students are also informed about the four definitions of a child.
The first is below 18 years old, and the second is over 18 but unable to take care of themselves due to physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory disability.
Next is a person, regardless of age presented, depicted as a child, and last are computer-generated, digitally, or manually crafted images of a person made to appear to be a child.
The orientation also highlights the use of ICT as a way to abuse and/or exploit children s*xually, and it also includes offline abuse/exploitation combined with components and the modus of perpetrators with its definition, which are grooming, luring, and pandering.
In addition, the push factors of Online Sexual Exploitation of Children (OSEC) are also tackled, namely, poverty, gender discrimination, lack of education on online safety, consumerism, family breakdown, s*x tourism, and ignorance of effects is also discussed.
On the other hand, the orientation also gives the importance of discussing the factors that can prevent OSEC, including community education regarding OSEC, non-discrimination, equal opportunities for employment, strict implementation of the law, support from peers and family, responsible use of social media from parental guidance, policies as well as ordinances that safeguard children on online usage.
At the end of the orientation, students are given a chance to ask questions regarding the discussion.
According to Mr. Tigon, "Ang gusto lang gyud namo is ang mga bata is aware of OSEC/CSAEM because sila man gud ang target of online s*xual abuse these days' mao nang as much as possible mo adto mig mga school para maka orient about CSAEM/OSEC."
"Be aware, you have to be aware of everything that's going on in your circle, that's going between your school, friends, family because it can happen everywhere. You have to be aware of the risk kung naa ni siya," he added.
✍️Ayesha Panonce
