We read and see reports about the terrible number of child sexual assaults and how few perpetrators ever get convicted. That is changing with the appointment of highly trained female judges to the Philippine family courts. 
 
One day in September 2013, Rosie, a 12-year-old child, but with a mental age of five or six, was grabbed by the live-in partner of her mother, slapped in the face and sexually assaulted. Rosie cried out with the physical pain.
 

There are 16,000 or more Filipinos living and working in Ireland, and earning just and good wages. There are 4,265 that are nurses and thousands more who are caregivers and other professionals. They are welcomed, trusted and highly respected and they send their hard-earned money back to the Philippines to support their families. 
 

Police in many nations that are fighting back against the paedophiles who sexually exploit children online are having remarkable success. 
 
Paedophiles and child pornographers, despite hiding on the dark web and using encryption software, are being caught in increasing numbers. They abuse children online and send thousands of pictures of them each other over the Internet. 
 

It surrounds us. It is in every place we go, on the street, on the beach or the woods. We see it when we climb a mountain or go for a swim. It is there, evidence of our willful neglect or ingenious inventiveness. It is our own man-made friend and already a destructive enemy. It is causing much permanent and irreversible harm to us and also to the creatures of the planet. Yes, you guessed it, it is plastic.
 

Jessica was a lost child wandering the streets of a Philippine city, picked up by a human trafficker and brought to different places where she was sold as a commodity to foreign sex tourists to be abused. 
 
She didn’t know what was happening to her at 14 years of age. She was raped, exploited and robbed of her virginity. She became angry at the world and felt she was nothing and had nothing. She felt she had no future, no present and no past life. 
 

History is full of tyrants and dictators. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Zedong are among the worst in past history, but today,dictatorship is increasingly on the rise. 
 
True democracy is in retreat as elected officials turn to dictatorship as a way to stay in power and rule with an iron fist and declare they will save their nation from evil and make the nation great. Putin, Erdoğan, Omar Al-Bashir, Kim Jong II are just a few of many that come to mind.
 

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. 
 

Church and police authorities and non-government organisations (NGOs) recently came together at the Vatican under the Santa Marta Group headed by Vincent Cardinal Nichols to discuss and share their experiences and listen to each other. They discussed greater cooperation in combating the global scourge and horrific crimes of human trafficking of vulnerable people into modern slavery. Cooperation is absolutely essential to finding an efficient global response and local action to save the victims and challenge the criminals.

When put on trial in Pasay City, Metro Manila, child sex abusers can expect a conviction and a harsh sentence of life in prison without parole from judge, Tingaraan Guiling, if the evidence warrants it. 
 
On February 12, a just decision based on the evidence, was handed down against Roque Galve, for the aggravated sexual assault and rape of a minor, let’s call her Rose. The judge is to be commended for doing justice for the abused child and many more like her.