THE PHILIPPINE Senate has finally approved the final draft of the Philippine Senate Bill (SB) 2332 or An Act Increasing the Age for Determining Statutory Rape and other Acts of Sexual Abuse and Exploitation to Protect Children.
This law is historic and vital to the protection of children and the prosecution of the child rapists that are abusing children every day with impunity. It has repealed the penal code that said it was legal to have sex with a 12-year-old and older. Now it is a criminal act of statutory rape to have sex with a 16-year-old child or younger. A convicted offender faces a possible sentence of life in prison on the credible testimony of the child victim. This law is a powerful deterrent and provides greater protection for vulnerable children. Child rights advocates have been campaigning for this change for decades, Preda Foundation among them, and finally a day of victory for children.
There are many child protection laws in the Philippines and worldwide. US laws cover crimes against children committed by US citizens in the Philippines or any country abroad. The EU countries need to have a similar law.
We need to ask ourselves, why are such laws necessary? While the vast majority of humans love and respect children, millions don’t. As said before, it seems humans, the species with intelligence, are the only species that sexually abuse their own children. There is a deep moral flaw and inclination to evil in human nature and awareness about it among adults and children. It is the first important line of protection. We all have to watch out for them and know that pedophiles and abusers are abusing their own children because they can. It is so easy for a family member to intimidate and abuse a child and then get a child to say she “consented’ with the words, “yes po.”
The child would be unable, without help, to testify in court against her family about the incest rape. Family intimidation would traumatize the child. Few cases are reported, fewer come to court. That is why child sexual abuse has almost become the norm but most people have a mental block to admitting that fact.
We must remember that in a 2015 National Baseline Study on Violence Against Children, one in every five children in the Philippines in the age group of 13 to 17 said they experienced sexual violence while one in 25 suffered from forced consummated sex during childhood. (To be continued)/PN
