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INSIDE STORY ON SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN ON THE INTERNET
By Lorraine McNamara
National President

On June 15th, 2004 I attended a workshop entitled Sexual Exploitation of Children Through the Internet hosted by The Young Offender Training Network. Dr. Peter Marshall, clinical psychologist, who, at present, provides therapy to paedophiles, sex offenders and victims of abuse, provided useful insights about paedophilia, pornography, and especially the dangers posed to children through internet pornography.

What I found most shocking about the images he showed was that none of it was illegal, not even the paedophile web sites which gradually lead children into inappropriate behaviour or relationships. Not only that, since the Internet does not acknowledge international boundaries and not every country considers pornography to be illegal, even if production of pornography is illegal here, it can get on the Internet legally from outside Canada.

It is incredibly easy for children to use the Internet. (Developmentally handicapped persons could be at real risk as the Internet becomes even easier to access.) Not only can children view material, they can also go to chat systems where it is possible to send messages back and forth and have conversations. There are bulletin boards where all sorts of information can be posted. Videos and whole movies can be downloaded. Webcams allow actual visual exchanges. While most chat lines are legitimate, others can be used by paedophiles to lure children into sexual activity. Even children's web sites are not 100% safe from paedophiles.

Pornography is a huge business - accessible, anonymous and easy to use. One estimate is that there are 20,000 pornographic sites. In 1998 Playboy became the eleventh most popular site, bringing in millions in advertising revenue. 70 percent of online sales are from pornography. The pornography business is now worth in excess of 18 billion dollars worldwide.

Children love to be on the Internet, particularly pre-teens and adolescents. However, unlike newspapers or magazines, there is little regulation of content and children can innocently click into a pornographic site, from which it is sometimes very difficult to exit. One study of the Internet shows that 20% of children indicate they have been exposed to pornography in the last year. Dr. Marshall was shocked to discover that some of his own family (he has five children) had viewed inappropriate material.

What is the impact of pornography on children? The research is very limited, but it is estimated that of those children who have been unwittingly exposed, about 25% of them reported being very disturbed. Even for those who said they were not upset, Dr. Marshall wondered what impact there had been on their attitude toward sexuality. We do know from studies of television violence that many children are desensitized and it is only logical to assume that children can also be affected by viewing pornography.

Apart from children being negatively affected through viewing pornography, major concerns are that children are being abused to provide material for paedophiles and also that some children are being stalked by paedophiles through the internet. Some of these abused children are just toddlers or babies. Most of the depictions are extreme, showing some kind of penetration. One estimate is that at least 50,000 children have been brutalized to satisfy the lusts of paedophiles. Children in third world countries are particularly vulnerable to such abuse. A wealthy paedophile can travel and purchase sex with children, and the Internet makes this much easier.

Cyber stalking is a growing abuse of the Internet. Most paedophiles tend to be men from 25-40 years of age, although the number of male adolescent offenders is rising. Often such men will go onto a chat line and pretend to be another child or sometimes a sympathetic adult. Once a paedophile has connected with a vulnerable child, he is likely to "groom" the child. That is, having gained the child's trust, he begins to forward pictures showing children having sex and enjoying it, destroying the child's natural inhibitions. Children from dysfunctional families are more at risk than those where there are normal healthy relationships.

What motivates these paedophiles? Dr. Marshall described four areas: sexual arousal (being turned on by children); overcoming internal inhibitions; overcoming external inhibitions; and overcoming the resistance of the child. The Internet has a role in all four areas. First of all, it permits access to a huge amount of pornography, including pornography about children, pictures, videos, and talk groups with paedophiles, all of which can be sexually titillating.

How does one overcome internal inhibitions about paedophilia? Most child pornography shows children looking as if they enjoy it, and many paedophiles use this as an excuse to indulge in pornography. Children are depersonalized.

To overcome external inhibitions, paedophiles, which now have the opportunity to join together through the Internet, promote the idea that they are being marginalized by society. Groups with their own culture, literature, who socially interact with each other, become empowered by mutual support. There are several levels of membership, and a child pornographer obtains status by collecting and sharing pornographic pictures of children. Some have as many as 50,000 pictures.

If a paedophile gets into the right chat systems he can get advice on how to make contact with and overcome the resistance of children. There is nothing to stop paedophiles associating with each other, and there are several web sites for paedophiles, which are perfectly legal. Dr. Marshall showed a series of slides of one particular web site which starts out innocently and is very attractive to young girls. However, gradually, very cleverly, it draws the child into inappropriate behaviour.

Dr. Marshall said that when interviewing paedophiles who have been convicted of sexual offences, the majority came up with excuses for their behaviour, such as being drunk. However, a number of them talked in detail about their "grooming" process, how they made themselves attractive to kids. It should be noted that in most cases these were persons known to the child.

What can be done? There are ways of filtering sexual content, but these all have limitations. No monitoring system is perfect. It is really up to the parents to monitor Internet use by their children. A password must be established and the parent must always be there. Also, parents can do an Internet search for information on how to protect their children. It should be noted, of course, that the majority of chat lines are legitimate for both children and adults, but parents should always be aware of where their children are on the Internet.

Following his talk, I asked Dr. Marshall whether he could think of any situation where child pornography could be "for the public good", as was suggested in the legislation which was put forward by the Liberal government. He answered, quite simply, "No."

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