Online child pornography: how dangerous is it?

Any child can become a victim of a pedophile on the Internet!

Omnipresent statistics show that one in five children between the ages of 10 and 17 using the Internet receives offers of a sexual nature from adult users. Every fourth teenager who entered into chatting with adult users through chats was shown pictures and photographs of a pornographic nature. Even taking into account that half of the children, chatting and chatting, “ascribes” to themselves 3-5 years, formally becoming more “adults”, the figures are still menacing.

According to some reports, child pornography ranks third in the world in profit, after the drug and arms trade. Even if not third, but, say, fifth , can you imagine the scope? Up to two million children are attracted to this business annually. Revenues from child porn business exceed the income of the Colombian drug mafia. According to Interpol, “masters of child porn” for shooting children from 2 months to 12 years annually help up to 1 billion dollars …   

For some time now, more than 75% of all child pornography is distributed on the Internet, where, according to some estimates, there are almost 40 thousand porn sites. And this figure will probably only grow. Monitoring of Ukrainian Internet sites has shown that they contain about 20 percent of banned porn products, including children’s. The demand for such pornography is three times the supply! 

99% of consumers of child pornography are men. The price of Internet porn services ranges from $ 20 to $ 150 per month, depending on the services they offer.  

The scheme by which Internet pedophiles act in search of a new victim is simple. Criminals enter children’s on-line chats, there they get acquainted with children. Having talked a little and having placed the child to himself, the offender sets up a meeting “in real life” – prepositions can be completely different. To stimulate the “victim”, offer money or other rewards. Especially fast are “pecking” by children from low-income families and adolescents who do not have enough “pocket money”. Sometimes drugs are offered as rewards. When the child is “caught in a trap” – there is a meeting in the “real” and photo and video. In addition, a child can become a victim of a criminal through a web-camera.   

For example, several chats “Yahoo!” were closed due to the fact that pedophiles actively used them. Through a webcam, they sent teens in chat rooms their nude photos. Teenagers with a webcam on their computer may be the victims of such “attention seekers”.

Another cover for the development of the child porn industry is the children’s “modeling agencies”. There are many examples of this. So, in 2004, a criminal group was neutralized in Ukraine, which, under the guise of a modeling agency, made pornographic films and films with the participation of girls aged 8 to 16 years and posted them on foreign porn sites. In mid-2005, the activities of such a criminal group were also suppressed. For an hour of filming, girls were paid from 50 to 200 hryvnias. Moreover, many parents of the girls knew or guessed what their children were doing, but no one turned to the police. The so-called model agency has existed for three years. It distributed advertising for participation in filming in the media, including in newspapers. According to current information, the net monthly income of the company was about 100 thousand dollars.

The worst thing is that many of the “models” are brought at the studio by parents , for whom a “fee” of 100-150 hryvnias per “session” is a lot of money. And for this amount they don’t want to go into details about exactly how their children are photographed or filmed and how the children themselves feel at the same time.   

Research into the effects of children engaging in pornography is terrifying. Judging by the clinical observations, children acting in porn films begin to perceive themselves as goods that can be sold. They forget about everything that they loved before, and ultimately react to what is happening to them, as if they were inanimate objects, and not people with soul and heart. Children involved in pornography often find a substitute for it in the form of drugs or prostitution. Like other victims of sexual coercion, they often experience sexual problems in adulthood. And, worst of all, sexually exploited children, as adults, often begin to do the same with other children. 

Not far behind Ukraine and Russia. In the Sverdlovsk Region, for six months, using a personal computer, he published on the Internet information about the presence of pornographic materials and posted on his website photographs and films of pornographic content with the participation of minors previously copied from the Internet, he opened access to his site for viewing and copying the pornographic materials available on it, regularly received remuneration for providing its resources to other subscribers. Only after that a criminal case was instituted against him.

Many “stars” and “stars” for such products are supplied by the army of homeless children. The easiest way to work with young children. They do not particularly understand the nature of the work in which they are involved, because sometimes they pose with toys. In other cases, they are first photographed simply naked, and then quickly move on to shooting entire scenes set up in such a way that it looks like sexual activity; and finally, “real” sexual acts are played out. 

It is very difficult to combat the spread of child pornography on the Internet. The Internet is an open global information network that does not actually belong to any country in the world. Each country is struggling with the problem of the spread of child pornography and pedophilia on the World Wide Web as best it can.   

As always, there are supporters and opponents of restrictions. Thus, a survey conducted by the Center for Computer Crime Research showed that only 49.57% of respondents support blocking access to sites containing child pornography by the provider, and 37.32% are against it.

None of the providers wants to be responsible for who is “hosted” on his site. And in all conscience – he should. To track the spread of child porn on the Internet is “a difficult but doable mission.” Only now, even if tracked, there are no levers of influence on criminals.   

It’s no secret that fighting “traditional” pedophiles is much easier than fighting “virtual” ones, and thanks to high technology, criminals can easily track down and attract children to the porn industry. With the development of computer technology, children can become a victim, not even realizing the unlawful actions of adults. Therefore, counteraction to this type of crime is necessary, because its object is the most valuable – the healthy social development of mankind as a whole.   

In the fight against child pornography, it is necessary to look for new approaches that would clearly articulate the measure of responsibility of manufacturers, distributors and all kinds of consumers of these products. This task is difficult because the criminal legislation of different countries does not have uniform standards regarding child pornography and prostitution. 

A prerequisite for the effective fight against child pornography and pedophilia on the Internet is its legislative definition, the development of a new, effective system to counter and combat child pornography on the Internet.

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