NKOLS and NS-OSAEC Teams Conduct Culminating Activity
Online threats to vulnerability exist, no matter where the location. They are not province- or gadget-specific. As long as there is Piso-Net, there is an online threat to children.
This was one of the lessons shared by research apprentices and assistants during the culminating activity of two SDRC studies commissioned by UNICEF—the “National Kids Online Survey” (NKOLS) and the “National Study on Online Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children in the Philippines” (NS-OSAEC)—that was held on August 19, 2019 at the Henry Sy, Sr. Hall Roof Deck. Considered to be “big” in terms of scope and duration, the two projects were brought to a close in an informal gathering that also served to demonstrate how each member of the two project teams contributed significantly to the studies’ completion, as pointed out by SDRC Director Dr. Maria Caridad Tarroja.
Presenting the project overview and findings for NKOLS was project director Dr. Rhoderick Nuncio. The project aimed to present two sides of the Internet—the positive and negative—that affect Filipino children who, by circumstance and by design, explore its benefits and opportunities in their day-to-day lives. Among the significant findings Dr. Nuncio relayed were those involving the risks and dangers faced by children, including their doing dangerous things (offline) “for fun,” being in trouble with the police, experiencing sexual relationships, and bullying other children. Almost a fifth of the child respondents had also had unwanted sexual experiences, and some said that family members had been involved in arranging these situations. However, it was also found that the children still aspired to complete their education, desiring to attend college and eventually find work in the country or abroad.
Dr. Ethel Ong, meanwhile, discussed the NS-OSAEC study, which sought to gather data systematically and delve into the nature and reach of online sexual abuse and exploitation of children in the Philippines, and to identify the factors that precipitate and perpetuate it. In discussing the key findings in case resolution and management, the team identified weaknesses in the legal framework for the protection of children. These were that laws on the protection of children were overlapping, as were the mandates of agencies involved; the lack of law and sanctions to compel the private sector to cooperate with law enforcement on OSAEC cases; and gaps in court proceedings. To help in addressing these areas, various stakeholders have made efforts in policy development, specialized units and agencies, capacity building, advocacy, and conducting and participating in research. For UNICEF, the team recommended that the agency continue to take the lead in engaging different stakeholders, experts and the general public to continue the discourse on the prevention, identification, and response to OSAEC.
SDRC’s doctoral apprentices and the projects’ field coordinators, psychologists, research assistants, and transcribers then took the floor to share their personal take-aways from participating in the studies. Through the data gathering process, they came to understand the value of collaboration in knowledge and skills when challenged by the rough terrain to be traversed, the threat of insurgency, and the sudden declaration of martial law; learned how to deal with the practices of different cultures and tribes, and to work within the restrictions of the Data Privacy Act; and realized the consequences of lack of proper intervention, and the need to create awareness of the effect of online abuse on children.
For their part, NKOLS co-investigators Dr. Myla Arcinas and Dr. Arnulfo Azcarraga provided insights on the study that were not made part of the formal report. Reporting as part of a global study, the team had to ensure that the same types of information were provided from the Philippines as those of other participating countries. Dr. Arcinas also spoke of the difficulties in employing a blended approach to the study, requiring double preparation for conducting a survey and then handling FGDs. However, the qualitative data proved to be the heart of the study, since this is where the risks of Internet use surfaced. The FGDs, moreover, provided an enjoyable way for the child respondents to share their experiences without seeing the negative consequences that Internet use had on them.
Dr. Azcarraga, meanwhile, spoke of learning from the experience of working in a multidisciplinary team that included Behavioral Sciences and Psychology faculty, a statistician, and himself, being from the field of Computer Science. He said that his interest was in what was in the data that was unexpected, and that would not be in the tables that UNICEF will be using. The team thus clustered child Internet users based on criteria other than gender, socio-economic status, and urban/rural setting of household, finding that the resulting data was “ripe” for mining. In what he referred to as “PKOLs plus”, he presented future studies that could be done 1) among the very young (below 9 years of age), 2) among De La Salle-Philippines schools, 3) among member schools of the International Association of LaSalle Universities (IALU), and 4) in conducting Mukhlat for Grades 1 and 2.
The published output of the two SDRC-UNICEF projects is expected to be launched in October 2019.
