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Eight kids forced to have sex for online audience

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Eight children who were allegedly sold for prostitution and forced to have sex for an online audience were rescued on Wednesday (June 10), Filipino authorities said.

Seven of them are girls aged between 13 and 17.

Christopher Villanueva, 33, is accused of forcing the children and another 18-year-old girl to have sex with him and each other in front of web cameras for viewers in Asia, US and Europe.

Police raided his house in Manila on Wednesday night and found sex toys, web cameras and laptops. Villanueva and a woman were arrested.

The woman, who lived near Villanueva, is the mother of three of the abused children.

She is accused of forcing her children to engage in sex for money.

Undercover agent

Mr Alex Nuqui, head of the National Bureau of Investigation’s anti-human trafficking division, told AFP: "It is always shocking how people can be so perverse and callous when they abuse children."

Villanueva allegedly charged customers in the US, UK, Australia and Japan between US$50 (S$67) to US$100 to watch the children having sex, Mr Nuqui said.

Filipino authorities had acted after getting a tip-off from the US Department of Homeland Security.

A US agent had posed as an online customer and struck a deal to sleep with one of the girls at his house for 5,000 pesos (S$150).

Mr Nuqui said Villanueva told the undercover US agent in an online chat: "They (the children) will fulfil all your fantasies. Come to the Philippines."

Source: AFP


Cambodia jails Australian teacher for child sex abuse

In a separate case of child sex abuse, a Cambodian court on Thursday (June 11) sentenced an Australian teacher to five years in prison for sexually abusing six impoverished boys aged between three and 13.

George Moussallie, 52, an English teacher at a private school in the capital Phnom Penh, has been in custody since last August when police raided his rented apartment and found him with two boys.

Judge Kor Vandy said Moussallie was guilty on charges of having sex with children and "indecent acts".

The court "orders him to be deported from Cambodia after serving his prison term", the judge said, ordering Moussallie to pay a total of US$2,500 in compensation to two of his victims.

According to Khoem Vando of anti-paedophile NGO Action Pour Les Enfants, Moussallie had been on their watch list since 2009.

Source: AFP

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