The newly signed law ensures that every child is protected from all forms of abuse and

exploitation, especially those committed with the use of information and communications
technology (ICT).

Child pornography is a form of child sexual exploitation. US DOJ

The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children,
Child Prostitution and Child Pornography was adopted by the UN General Assembly on May 25,
2000 and came into force January 18, 2002. One hundred five countries have signed and 42 (now
including the U.S.) have ratified it.

This protocol is the first instrument of international law to define these terms.
It protects children up to age 18 by treating the actions of exploiters as criminal acts which merit
serious punishment.

The State recognizes the vital role of the youth in

nation-building and shall promote and protect their physical, moral, spiritual, intellectual,
emotional, psychological and social well-being.

The new legislation, which came into force on 1st January 1999, criminalizes all dealings with
child pornography, which meant that even
possession of child pornographic pictures is illegal (possession prohibition). Crimes relating to
child pornography that had previously been
included under Brottsbalken (BrB) – the Criminal Code, Tryckfrihetsförordningen (TF) – the
Press Law, and Yttrandefrihetsgrundlagen
(YGL) – the Freedom of Expression Constitutional Law, have now been
collected together solely in the Criminal Code (BrB)

3.1.3.2. Philippines
The Philippines is another significant destination for child sex tourism in Southeast Asia.
Especially in the 1990s, the Philippines was active in investigating child sex tourists and arrested
and prosecuted a number of foreigners for child sex offenses committed in the country.
Information based on these and later arrests paints a picture of the nationalities of child sex
tourists that were operating in the Philippines at the time and those found in the country today.
The most recent arrests (2004-2006) in the Philippines for child sex tourism and related offenses
have been of perpetrators from the United States, France, Germany, and South Korea. A
compilation of media coverage of child sex tourism in the Philippines reveals documented cases
of at least 42 perpetrators arrested in the Philippines between the late 1980s and 2007

The foregoing data indicates that citizens of the United States appear to be frequent perpetrators
of child sex tourism in the Philippines, constituting 29 percent of offenders and alleged offenders
arrested in the Philippines for which information regarding nationality was available. Additional
information provided by government officials and the NGO sector in the Philippines likewise
strongly
indicates the significant presence of child sex tourists from the United States in this country. As
in the case of Cambodia, it is important to keep in mind that the relatively higher number of
arrests of Westerners as opposed to Asian perpetrators may again be linked to the fact that
Western men tend to seek out children on the street while Asian men do so through more discreet
networks.