The advent of the internet has done amazing things for the
world. The internet has made markets available to people who would have never
had that opportunity any other way. A teenager in Manila can read the tweets coming from the Gaza
strip, African women can sell their goods online to Asian buyers, a simple
college student has access to all the information they could ever imagine using
and they can carry it in a bag slung over their shoulder. There is no dispute
that the internet has brought many good things but the internet is not a moral
being. The internet is amoral. Morality is left up to the users and while the
internet is used for so much good it has also aided the development of so much
evil.
Child pornography is defined as content that depicts sexually
explicit activities involving a child. Child being anyone under the age 18.
Unfortunately child pornography has always been a problem but the internet has
provided an arena for producers and distributers of child pornography to access
their consumers with ease and convenience. Given the shadow nature of the child
pornography community it can be very difficult to provide solid numbers to
describe the extent of the problem but the available evidence indicates that it
is a major and growing problem. “At any one time there are estimated to be more
than one million pornographic images of children on the internet, with 200 new
images posted daily.”[1] A
single offender arrested in the U.K.
was in possession of 450,000 images and there are individual child pornography
sites that receive a million hits per month.
It is difficult to even think about this issue but the
battle against child pornography requires a full education of the problem. A
study from 2005 showed that 83 percent of people arrested for child pornography
possessed images involving children between the ages of 6 and 12; “39 percent
had images of children between ages 3 and 5; and 19% had images of infants and
toddlers under age 3.”[2]
One of the hypothesis’ as to why child pornography has become
more prevalent is that viewing images online in the security of your own home
makes it easier to forget that the children in these videos are real people and
real victims. To be sexually abused as a child is a terrible life changing
event but to have that event recorded and distributed to hundreds, thousands or
even millions of people creates a legacy of abuse in which the victim continues
to be abused by every person who downloads their image. Studies[3]
have shown that victims of child pornography actually experience an
intensification of the initial feelings of shame and anxiety developing into
deep despair, worthlessness and hopelessness.
We find ourselves in a dire situation. The internet is a
great tool being manipulated to fulfill unsavory ends but there is no one
person or institution who is responsible for stamping out the production and
distribution of internet child pornography. It has to be a multi-level attack
starting with each of you being an advocate in your local area. Local advocates
can work with local governments who can work with state governments and Federal
agencies who can work with international agencies to seek justice for the
abused and do everything possible to save more children from becoming victims.
There is still Hope…
There's Freedom!
Let’s Report the crime!
Save our Children!
Let’s Stop Child Pornography!
Bibliography
- http://www.popcenter.org/problems/child_pornography/1
- http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/publications/e04062000.pdf
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-l-pulido-phd/internet-child-pornography_b_4562194.html
- http://www.wearethorn.org/child-sex-trafficking-child-pornography-aided-internet-anonymity/
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