child pornography and sexual exploitation of children online

Society (External Experts Study Group on Protection of Children from Harmful Effects
of Virtual Society, 2006) it was stated that there are comics, PC games and animation
in circulation with sexual abuse images of children who appeared to be under 18 and
some as young as primary school age. While some show images of children engaged in
sexual intercourse, there are also those which appear to contain children being gang-raped
by many adult men, forced into violent and demeaning sexual activities, and in which
it is suggested that the children are enjoying these sexual acts. Further, some of these
publications have such images on their front covers.
The report suggested that while there is some self-censorship imposed by bodies such as
the Nihon Ethics of Video Association and Ethics Organisation of Computer Software,
this does not apply to all products, and amongst them there are animated films with child
sexual abuse images. What is also troubling is that this report suggested that the Internet
has become a conduit for the sale of hard-copy comics (over which there is little control).
“According to a sampling survey conducted by the National Police Agency in November
2006, at one of the famous internet book sales sites which sell adult comic books and the
likes comprehensively, 30% of some 9000 adult comic books are suspected to be those
with child sexual abuse images, and judging from the cover sheet containing such images
as school bags unique to primary school children, it can be expected that a good number
depicting children below the primary school ages as the objects of sexual acts are in the
market. Further, the volume of comic books with child sexual abuse images is believed to
be larger than those in the forms of PC games and animation films... Besides, the survey
also confirmed that the same five comic books depicting a child appeared to be at below
primary school age as an object of sexual acts are sold at the 6 famous internet book-sales
sites”. In a report appearing in the magazine Shukan Bunshun, (Shukan Bunshun, 2005),
an interview with staff from a game shop indicated that, “There are two major streams
of games showing little girls; one is a love story with an innocent girl, and the other is
extremely violent one that a player can sexually control and train a girl. One of the popular
games is one that has ‘an ejaculation button’ a player can push to put their sperm over a
girl”. However, it is apparent that while such materials are produced in countries such as
Japan, they are consumed by people from over the world. In the report by Baartz (2008) of
Australian offenders, investigators gave detailed responses to the child exploitation material
found in 10 of the 50 cases identified. One such investigator reported, “A vast majority of
the collection were cartoon drawings from Japan. The drawings were very graphic in nature
depicting children involved in sex acts with adults and other children. Some of the cartoons
were violent in nature showing children in bondage and also children who appeared to be
distressed by the situation. Some of the cartoons also depicted incest with both the mother
and the father” (p. 24).
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