CASE STUDY Jackie’s ordeal: Trafficking survivor rises from online sexual exploitation A Case Study from the Children’s Legal Bureau Jackie (real name withheld), now 24 years, old, is a resident of Cordova town, Cebu. Jackie’s parents are usually out of their home. Her father works as a pedicab driver and a seasonal worker while her mother is a housekeeper, both earning meager incomes. She is the eldest child of seven (7) children. Jackie was responsible to perform household chores and looking after her younger siblings and sickly grandmother. Jackie did not enjoy a happy childhood. She and her siblings had experienced physical abuse from her father. Her mother is also a battered wife. One of her siblings had been involved with illegal drug use while another sibling has not returned home because of their father’s maltreatment. Their mother seemingly lacked the required attention to her children. Sometime in January 2010, Jackie, then a minor child, was recruited by her neighbor, Tessa (real name withheld), to perform lewd shows in her house. At the time when Tessa approached Jackie, she told the minor victim that her daughter, Rosa (real name withheld) was looking for her. When Jackie finally entered their home, Rosa instructed Jackie to sit beside her while she was having a video chat with a foreigner. Rosa directed Jackie to show her breasts to the foreigner on the computer through the webcam. After the said incident, Tessa would often visit Jackie’s house to ask her to do more shows. During these instances, Rosa would ask Jackie to show the latter’s buttocks and private parts to a foreigner on the computer. There are other times when Rosa would instruct Jackie to use a sex toy. The acts performed by Jackie mainly depended on the requests of the foreigners. Jackie performed these shows three times a week, depending on foreigners’ requests. She would normally receive between two hundred pesos (P200) to three hundred fifty pesos (P350) from Tessa every after show. One time, Jackie performed a show with another child, Christine (real name withheld). Each of them received two hundred pesos (P200). There was also a time when another show was performed in the house of Bella (real name withheld), with Bella’s child joining the show. She was given a hundred pesos (P100) for doing the show. Jackie would give her mother the amounts she had been receiving for doing the shows. Her mother would later suspect the generosity of her child since Jackie has been only given a small allowance. Jackie’s mother later learned about the sexual exploitation suffered by her child when their neighbor, the mother of Christine, reported the perpetrators to barangay and police authorities, and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). Now, Jackie is working at an export processing zone and has made a family of her own. Upon her full reintegration into the community, she expresses confidence in dealing with 53