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Child pornography

Posted: 8:40 3/22/08 by webmaster

Child pornography refers to pornographic material depicting children. It has been described as a form of child sexual abuse and is illegal in most countries. The internet has made the production and usage of child pornography more visible, and thus, a target of legislation and law enforcement efforts.

While the mere viewing or use of child pornography has been characterized as a victimless crime, the production of it often involves abuse or exploitation of children.

Relation to child abuse

Where child pornography involves depictions of children engaging in sexual conduct, the production of this material will in itself be legally prohibited as child sexual abuse in most countries. The profit that can be generated from selling such images is seen as a factor in encouraging the original abuse that is photographed or filmed. It has been stated that laws against the possession of child pornography constitute Thought crime.

Substantiated cases of child sexual abuse in the US declined dramatically in number between 1992 and (at least) 1998. A substantial decline also appears to have occurred in Australia. The United Kingdom Children's charity NCH once stated that demand for child pornography on the Internet could lead to an increase in sex abuse cases, though this conflicts with the Office for National Statistics's 2007 report on Child Protection Registers, which shows a decrease of approximately 27% in the number of sexually abused children between 2003 and 2007 on the register.

Whether artificially created erotic or pornographic material (e.g. lolicon, some pornographic dōjinshi, etc.) constitutes "child abuse" is disputed, as no actual children are necessarily involved in the production. The purported link between use of child pornography and child abuse has been used to justify the prohibition of sexual depictions of children, whether their production involves child abuse or not. This link is itself disputed: Sex therapist Petr Weiss and Canadian Justice Jeff Shaw, for instance, have argued that child pornography use may decrease cases of child sexual abuse by allowing pedophiles to sublimate their desires.

A 2008 review of the use of Internet communication to lure children outlines the controversy and possible links to actual behaviour regarding the effects of Internet child pornography. One perspective is that exposure to child pornography stimulates and provokes criminal sexual intent that otherwise would lie buried or inaccessible. Exposure to child pornography might heighten desire and motivation to act on urges by lowering internal restraints. Anonymity (or belief that anonymity exists) may further loosen the internal restraints, such that the individual "practices" molestation in the imagination, facilitated by still or moving images, which makes actual criminal sexual behaviour with children more probable if the person was already sexually motivated toward children, or, by creating new sexual interests in children . The review article states that these are plausible hypotheses, but that there is a lack of clarity as to the general applicability of these mechanisms. There is no current data that use of child pornography on the Internet either lowers or increases the incidence of actual offending; they note that similar theories have been advanced in the past about pornography in general.

This 2008 review article further indicates that when child pornography users go on to commit sexual offences, these are characterised by the exploitation of a relationship that is bent by the offender in the direction of sexuality, where violence is not used. The most common charge is statutory rape and other types of sexual crimes where the victim has cooperated with the behavior.

 

Responses

In Canada

Canadian law forbids the production, distribution, and possession of child pornography. Prohibition covers the visual representations of sexual activity by minors (although prosecutions in cases involving anyone over 14 are rare)[citation needed] and the depiction of their sexual organ/anal region for a sexual purpose, unless an artistic, educational, scientific, or medical justification can be provided. It also includes the written depictions of children engaging in sexual activity.

Law that addresses dynamic aspects of the Internet by regulating the nature of live-time chatting and email communications that may relate to enticing children for pornographic (e.g., web cam) or other sexual purposes has passed in 2002. It also criminalizes the intentional access of child pornography.

 

In the Philippines

On September 15, 2007, the Children and Youth Secretariat of the Anti-Child Pornography Alliance (ACPA-Pilipinas) in the Philippines launched Batingaw Network "to protect and save children from all forms of abuses and exploitations." It is the largest anti-child pornography movement in the Philippines to date. It declared September 28 as the "National Day of Awareness and Unity against Child Pornography