Being Safe in the Internet: A Case Study

Living in the slums along the congested Quezon Boulevard east of Davao City is a daily struggle. Every evening, “Aida”, not her real name, who turned 19 has to go fishing with her father at the Davao Gulf or else they have to starve the following day. They share a one-room makeshift house with her pregnant sister “Angel”, 16. Her mother left for Saudi to work as domestic helper when Aida was 14 where she sent about P4,000 from her monthly salary of P8,000. Their lives became hard when their mother stopped sending them money after two years for unknown reason.

Aida’s father was severely affected by the situation that he turned to alcohol and gambling while Aida and little Angel were forced to stop schooling and had to tend for themselves. Income from fishing was barely enough for their daily needs so Aida had to augment their income by selling cigarettes, candies, bottles and Sampaguita flowers in the streets of the city. She learned how to smoke cigarettes, steal, sniff solvent and fight with other gang members. No day was complete without riots and gang wars that involved Aida. Later Angel joined the fray.

One night a leader of a rival all-female gang came to offer a truce. She invited Aida and her members to join them have fun with their video games and Internet surfing instead of fighting. They were told that money was easy in the Internet by just showing their private parts in front of the camera. They went inside a dimly-lighted computer café in the downtown area and into a tiny cubicle with a computer unit. She was told that many café had such types of cubicles and were frequented by young students. For sometime her sister Angel and some members of her gang had made computer café as their hideout.

In 2006, Aida joined the NAKAMATA, an organization of street girls under the Tambayan Center for the Care of Abused Children in Davao which had a community organizer in the area. “At first I was hesitant because I thought Tambayan would scold me and turn me over to the police for being a gang leader,” Aida said. NAKAMATA staged a theater presentation during the launching of the anti-child pornography campaign in the city on December 12, 2006 where Aida was a cast. Later she attended a seminar for children in conflict with the law (CICL) about child pornography sponsored by Tambayan and Anti-Child Pornography Group Davao which discussed the extent of the dangers of the Internet to children, among other topics.

Aida said, “Through the seminar I was able to connect my first experience with the Internet to our campaign against child pornography that is happening undetected in many Internet café in the city and to help inform the children about its dangers.” The clamor for the Internet Service Providers and café owners to address the issue of child pornography had been great that the Internet Café Association of Davao (ICAD) voluntarily dismantled their cubicles and posted anti-pornographic signs in their establishments. The campaign also encouraged the city government to tighten their watch against unscrupulous businessmen selling pornographic materials in the streets that were visible to youth and children. The nearby cities of Panabo, Tagum and IGACOS slowly followed suit also.

“I’m very grateful to Tambayan and UNICEF for giving me an opportunity to change my life and in protecting children from being victimized in the Internet and hi-tech cellular phones”, she concluded.

Aida became a delegate to a children’s educational exchange program in Colombia, South America in 2007 and now a volunteer children organizer for Tambayan Center.

Tambayan Center is a member of the Anti-Child Pornography Group-Davao that is spearheading the anti-child pornography campaign in the city and other selected areas of Mindanao under the support of UNICEF.

Prepared for the ACP Group Davao by: Emmanuel C. Roldan, Kabataan Consortium, Inc.
If you are interested to help the campaign, please contact acporno@gmail.com