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Child Porn Epidemic


TRAFFICKING and advertising of child pornography on the Net has exploded in the past two weeks, a child protection agency says.
Child Wise national director Bernadette McMenamin said 500 per cent more child porn spam (Internet advertising) had been received by the group in past weeks. Ms McMenamin said complaints about child porn advertising and promotions had also soared.
"As a monitoring agency, it comes as a dramatic increase and we aren't sure what's going on," she said.
"The concern is (the spam) is actually fuelling pedophilia because it's reaching more people and promoting the demand for abused children."
The spate of child porn spams includes:
WEEKLY payment offers for unlimited access to "underage porn".
FREE CD offers for three-packs of child porn.
BLATANT offers of videos that show children performing sex acts.
Australian Broadcasting Authority content assessment manager Richard Fraser said Australia received up to 10 referrals from international child pornography hotlines each week.
"That material comes to us when a complaint is made to a hotline overseas and the hotline finds a reference of some sort to Australia," Mr Fraser said.
Most referrals came from European countries including Germany, Sweden, Ireland and Finland.
Mr Fraser said Russia, the United States and former Soviet Union states were the child porn production hotspots.
He said increasing numbers of complaints received d id not necessarily mean the amount of child porn was increasing.
Victoria Police spokes man Det Sen-Sgt Chris O'Connor said many spams used the "child pornography" tag to attract people to adult sites.
"The vast majority of investigations of material received from ABA have been found to not be hosted in Victoria," Det Sen-Sgt O'Connor said.




Herald Sun (15-10-2003)
Paula Beauchamp
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