The Philippine Survivor Network or PSN is an all-inclusive program in the Philippines for survivors of different types of violence, including child sexual exploitation and abuse online. They desire to pursue safer communities with sustained restoration of survivors and a responsive network of care and justice systems.

The PSN is a local chapter of the Global Survivor Network (GSN), an international group of survivors leading a global movement to protect communities around the world from violence. Through the GSN, survivors of violence from around the world are advocating for change in their communities and speaking out as leaders.

We are writing this letter so you will know our side of the story as survivors of child sexual abuse and exploitation and for you to know that we are willing to collaborate with you on any aspect.

The PSN addresses the European Parliament and European Union Council in their letter of support.

Survivor leaders known by their pseudonyms Joy, Ashira, and Carsten, drew from personal experience and provided recommendations to strengthen the legislation.

Their recommendations include:

• Balance user privacy with child protection and the privacy of victims and survivors.
• Companies should be required to detect both new and known child sexual abuse material.
• Companies should be required to prevent livestreamed child sexual abuse.
• The ‘EU Centre on Child Abuse’ will support international collaboration efforts.
• Foreign victims outside the EU should be given the right to request and expect content removal and entitled to reparations.

Listen to the survivors

Stated in their letter, the privacy of victims and survivors is an important consideration. Perpetrators had exposed their privacy without their knowledge or consent. They request that the EU not forget about the privacy of victims and survivors whose sexual abuse is in photos and videos shared online.

The survivor leaders also wrote that timely detection and removal of child sexual abuse material is crucial in combatting online exploitation and abuse. It can protect children from harm, prevent distribution of such material, and further victimization.

Creation of an 'EU Centre on Child Abuse' will increase international collaboration to identify perpetrators and victims of child sexual abuse. PSN finds that, through this Centre, it will be easier for survivors to get justice. Working together globally is necessary to end such a global crime. They also encouraged governments that the more they collaborate with survivors, the more they would understand their advocacies of their rights.

In their final recommendation, the survivor leaders wrote that if victims outside the EU were given the right to request content removal and were entitled to reparations, it would provide them with more options to seek justice and hold perpetrators accountable for their actions.

The people demanding child sexual abuse material and the people exploiting children to create it are powerful. You are powerful, too, and we are more powerful together. We need you to use your powers as European leaders and citizens to protect children around the world.

Ultimately, the PSN advocates for the passing of this bill; that the legislators understand the urgency of making this into law in order to end online sexual exploitation of children in Europe and globally.

Access the letter here: https://osec.ijm.org/documents/87/PSN_Letter_to_EU_Parliament_and_Union_Council.pdf