drew thompson, thank you so much for joining us.one of the world's largest centres of child sexual exploitation online, and charities say there's been a sharp increase in reported incidents since the pandemic when many vulnerable children were exploited during lockdowns — often by close family members keen to make money. much of the abuse is filmed on webcams, paid for by customers in the us, the uk and other european countries, and australia. our correspondent laura bicker has been investigating — and her report includes some distressing details. this is manila's new front line in a war the police are not winning. a young boy is led out of the room by a social worker. he and his two sisters have been forced to act out live sex shows on camera by their mother. this home in a graveyard is where the children had to stay during a prolonged pandemic lockdown with a parent desperate for cash. it's absolutely tiny. so, are you taking evidence now? yes. and this is the subject, the mother. she's the mother? yes. so the mother is there stil

drew thompson is visiting senior research fellow at the lee kuan yew school of public policy, at thend former us department of defence official responsible for china — i asked him whether the protests will continue, and what sort of responce we can expect from the chinese authorities. certainly i think we will be able to see these protests ebb and flow. what is interesting they have been geographically distributed throughout china, they have involved very different classes of people — from students, workers in different places, migrant workers, middle—class people as well as students. so it is fairly geographically and socially spread, but there does not appear to be any sort of guiding hand, there does not appear to be a leadership, these people are not being instigated, this is a reflection of widespread discontent with the situation they are in, which is being forced to be locked in their homes, losing income and facing really economic headwinds. so i think the protests will continue, they are likely to ebb and flow because they're not being called into the streets in a controlled

drew thompson. good to have you with us. john was telling us about the underlying frustration and anger, dissatisfaction still being there. we have police presence and a crackdown on those demonstrations. how that we manifested? it is not like that will go away. >> absolutely. as john said, the underlying cause is the frustration, the loss of income, the loss of personal freedoms people have, being locked into their houses. in the general outrage at a couple of incidents in september. there was a bus crash where 20 people were killed. and the fires in an apartment building in her row she really brought home for middle-class, urban chinese people that these calamities can happen to them because of the way covid is being controlled. that is not expected to change. the frustrations are there. the question is how much risk are china's middle-class people in urban areas willing to accept to go out and protest? the police presence -- the ability to surveilled them and identify them using cameras in their electronics is quiet hi. t