It’s a case of child abuse and human trafficking that has caught much media attention. The case is being heard in the court of Honorable Judge Maria Angelica T. Paras-Quiambao, Regional Trial Court Branch 59, Angeles City, a judge of known integrity. It concerns a United States (US) national, John R., who is accused of sexually abusing two young girls, call them Sybil and Jemma (not their real names). The younger Jemma is 13-years-old and Sybil is 14-years-old. John R.

Human trafficking is the most widespread crime against persons and is the third biggest earning business in the world after drug trafficking and arms smuggling. The earnings are estimated to be US$32 billion ($251 billion) a year, according to a United Nations (UN) report.
 

There is a rising tide of people power in the world today and it is female power. Women are standing up and speaking out as never before and more people are sitting up and listening to what they have to say. Their message is basic, straightforward and its most important words are: freedom from abuse, equality, justice, education.
 

We entered the so-called Bahay Pagasa (House of Hope.) It turned out to be a children’s jail. We brought snacks and drinks to share with the young people in the cells. About 25 girls were crowded into one room. No air conditioning here, no fans either, so we brought some, but the rancid body smells pervaded the cells in the hot tropical heat.
 

The Philippines is a country with some of the greatest inequity in the world. Sixteen million Filipinos suffer serious poverty out of a population of 107 million. Six million live in extreme poverty. 
 

Christmas is the celebration of the wonder and great value we place on children. We celebrate their rights and dignity. Every family ought to protect and care for their children, not pamper and spoil them as objects and even victims of crass commercialisation and exaggerated gift-giving. 
 
No gift can ever buy the love of a child. No gift is more valuable than the genuine love and appreciation of parents for their children.
 

She was only a seven-years-old, call her Angelica. She never knew or imagined the sexual violence that was to be done to her by her stepfather, Apolonio Valdez. He took her from the small, two-roomed house to the nearby forest and assaulted and sexually abused her.
 

Thousands of undocumented immigrants who have crossed into the United States (US) in the past several months have had their children forcibly taken from them and placed in cages in detention centres by the president, Donald Trump.
 
Church leaders of many denominations and political leaders—Democrats and Republicans alike—and millions of good-hearted Americans and the international community expressed outrage calling it a violation of children’s human rights and a form of child abuse.
 

After a French court acquitted a 30-year-old man of child rape after he had sexual relations with an 11-year-old, the public was outraged and rightly so. 
 
The judge ruled that unless it could be proven that he had used force or intimidation, it was not rape but sexual assault of a child and he could be sentenced to a much lesser penalty.