Child pornography

Helping orphans the way you would do it

Child pornography is pornography involving children.

Prohibitions related to child pornography, with motivation

Production

The production of child pornography may involve child sexual abuse. However the depiction can also just show natural sexual play among children or masturbation. In some jurisdictions depictions of posing children or nude children are considered child porn as well. The production of simulated child pornography (see below) does not involve real children. In some jurisdictions production is explicitly prohibited regardless whether there is a risk for children being harmed in the actual case.

Distribution

The prohibition of distribution reduces the availability of child pornography. This also serves the protection of the actors, who do not consent to distribution, or can not give informed consent. Commercial trade in child porn is an incentive to its production; however, most jurisdictions outlaw any kind of distribution.

Possession

It has been suggested that the consumption of child pornography causes pedophilia and lowers the threshold of a person's willingness to engage in sex with a child, and, in the case of the additional crime of showing the images to a child, also conversely. This is an argument for banning simulated child porn or porn with young-looking actors above the age of consent.

On the other hand these materials may give pedophiless a sexual outlet, thereby lowering sexual frustration and the risk of committing abuse. Experience with the liberalisation of conventional porn in many countries indicates that the availability of porn reduces the number of sex crimes. In Japan, where art (not photographs) involving minors in sexual situations is legal, the instances of child sexual abuse are extremely low; however, Japan's crime rates in general are abnormally low, so this may not be correlative: see loli-con.

Age of consent in pornography

In many countries, including the US, the UK and the Netherlands, "children" are defined to be persons below the age of 18.

The European Union recommends the harmonisation of the age limit to 18 years. The Netherlands raised the age limit of a "child" to that number in October 2002. The UK Sexual Offences Act 2003 did the same. It was compulsory to dispose of possessions that became illegal. The age limit in Germany is still 14 years.

Note that there is a conflict between many countries' child porn laws and their age of sexual consent. For example, in the U.S. child porn defines anyone under 18; however, many states have ages of consent lower than 18. Therefore, it is legal to have sex with someone under 18 but not to take pictures of them in sexual situations. The young person is not even allowed to make such a picture of him- or herself for personal use. The different age limits can be justified with the same arguments as for outlawing simulated child pornography.

Simulated child pornography

The question has arisen whether materials which appear to, but in fact do not involve actual under-age persons (for instance because adult actors or computer animation were used) should also be treated as prohibited child pornography.

Proponents of such a prohibition argue that these materials might encourage child molesters, and that the availability of simulated child pornography would make the prosecution of true child pornography much harder. Opponents of the prohibition claim that simulated child pornography does not harm children and should therefore fall under the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press.

The United States Supreme Court decided in 2002 that the American prohibition of simulated child pornography is unconstitutional (Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition).

UK law has dealt with simulated images since 1994, when the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act introduced indecent pseudo-photographs of children. In the Netherlands from October 2002 seemingly real child pornography is treated like real. In Germany real and realistic depictions were never treated differently by law.

What contents are considered child pornography

"Pornography" is often defined to be the depiction of actual sexual activity. Nudist magazines with depictions of nude underage persons may not fall in this category and are widely available in some countries.

The United States of America covers all materials aimed at "prurient interests", even if no nudity is involved. In at least one case, nude pictures of small children in bath tubs have been declared to be child pornography, while in another case, females under 18 exposing their breasts has been found not to be child pornography because there was no physical contact (see Girls Gone Wild).

Under United Kingdom law, a "Child Pornography" image is an "indecent photograph of a child" - there is no requirement for "sexual content". Nudity is sufficient for an image to be indecent. Similarly, "bikini" shots might be considered indecent. With the 2003 Act, the word "pornography" is used for the first time, defined as meaning that "indecent images are recorded". Indecent photographs are defined in the Protection of Children Act 1978.

In Germany the definition for child pornography does not differ from that of conventional pornography. Sound and text can also be considered pornography.

Producers of child pornography

The majority of internationally available hardcore child pornography is produced in developing countries in former Soviet Union countries, South-East Asia and Central America. Germany was one of the main sources of naturist child erotica in the past. Japan was and still remains one of the leading producers of softcore pornography, which was outlawed there only in 1999, after much international pressure; enforcement remains somewhat sporadic. A lot of modern legitimate softcore pornography (so-called Lolita art) is also made in Russia and other ex-USSR countries.

Commercial child pornography

Unlike most European countries the US broadened their definition of child porn during the 1980s. However if one sticks to a narrow definition of child porn like the one in Germany, it predominantly origins from private production as well as commercial production in the 1960s and 1970s. Indications of commercial production of child pornography in noteworthy amounts could not be found despite careful investigation. The same applies to commercial distribution of child pornography, for that only isolated cases could be verified. The loss of anonymity by payment as well as the supply of free depictions inhibit commercial distribution. Media reports about child porn-rings almost exclusively refer to private, non-commercial exchange of child porn, but are meant to create the impression of a widely spread organized crime group trading child porn.

While up to the 1980s child porn to a limited extend was soled under-the-counter, non-commercial distribution significantly increased by the advent of the internet. It is usually shared in private circles by the use of file sharing, IRC and the usenet. In Germany there is just one case of investigation for possession of child porn per year among 20000 people, and the number remains constant. Only 2.7 percent of them are commercial or involve organized groups. The vast majority of suspects acted on their own.

Many child porn networks are operating in more than one country, making it harder for any single law enforcement agency to shut them down. An international sting operation aimed at a child porn network called the Wonderland Club resulted in more than 100 arrests in 14 nations.

Some sources claim that much or most of the material found online is actually bait deployed by law enforcement agents. The NAMBLA newsletter once warned its readers that most of the solicitations for child pornography are actually sting operations.

Miscellaneous

Production and sale of child pornography is generally illegal in most developed countries, although national regulations vary widely. Some countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and The Netherlands, outlaw mere possession.

Still, in some countries, the situation is different. For example, in Russia there is no special legislation regarding child pornography. Production of child pornography is usually prosecuted as child abuse. Illegal distribution of pornography is prohibited, but there is no law defining governing distribution of pornography and child porn is not singled out. Downloading and possession of child pornography is legal.

Production and distribution of child pornography generally separate from other forms of pornography, and the adult film industry has taken extremely strong efforts to separate itself from and oppose child pornography.

Lolita is a common codeword for child pornography, derived from Vladimir Nabokov's novel about a man's obsessive affair with a teenage girl.

See also: Age of consent, Criminal law, hentai, shota-con, loli-con, Operation Pin, honeypot, Internet child pornography, pedophilia, ephebophilia.

Other child links

External links

Sponsor a Child