child pornography and sexual exploitation of children online

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4. Young people’s behaviour online 4.1 Accessing pornography online It would be naïve to assume that pornographic or sexualised materials did not exist prior to the Internet. However, the Internet has brought with it a proliferation of easily accessible sexualised material. On the Internet it is possible to find material to suit all interests and proclivities (Taylor and Quayle, 2003; Anderson 2006), either through purposeful or accidental exposure. The accessibility, interactivity and anonymity of the Internet, however, are the very factors that increase the likelihood of exposure to violent or sexual material. In the European Commission’s Safety Awareness Facts Tools (SAFT) study (SAFT, 2003) study, almost one in five children had been invited to a face-to-face meeting with a stranger, and 34% had viewed a violent website, either accidentally or on purpose. Other authors have highlighted the accidental exposure of young people to unwanted sexual material on the Internet (Finkelhor et al., 2000; Mitchell et al., 2003), but have also acknowledged the fact that existing research examining the effects of exposure to unwanted sexual material had been, “ almost entirely based on college students and other adults. None of it concerns children, certainly not younger than aged 14. Moreover, the existing social research is all about voluntary and anticipated exposure. No research on children or adults exists about the impact of exposure that is unwanted or unexpected.” (p. 334). The relationship between voluntarily or involuntarily accessing of pornography online and the risk of falling victim to exploitation online is an under-researched area. The hypothesis regarding the different kind of adolescents that are caught in abusive and exploitative relationships online may indicate that risk-takers and self-destructive young people may also be accessing pornography or visiting chat sites catering to adults searching for sex partners, but no such empirical knowledge exists to date. Some authors would argue that involuntary exposure to pornography is indeed an exploitative act if it is specifically aimed at young people by purposefully targeting sites that young people frequently use with links that may lead to pornographic material, or using URLs that are close to URLs of sites frequented by young people, attracting the chance visitor who misspells the name of the website. In the YISS-1, Mitchell et al. (2003) indicated that one in four of children who regularly used the Internet encountered unwanted sexual pictures in the year prior to data collection. Seventy-three per cent of such exposures occurred while the young people were searching or surfing the Internet, and the majority happened while at home. These authors also discussed the ways in which programming techniques maintained such exposure: “Explicit sex sites are also sometimes 58|Child Pornography and Sexual Exploitation of Children Online
programmed to make them difficult to exit, referred to as “mousetrapping”. In fact, in some sites the exit buttons take a viewer into other sexually explicit sites. Indeed, in 26% of the surfing incidents, youth reported they were brought to another sex site when they tried to exit the site they were in. This happened in one third of the distressing incidents.” (p. 342). The majority of children who were exposed to material regarded such exposure as not particularly distressing. However, the authors emphasised that such exposure, particularly unwanted exposure, may affect attitudes about sex, the Internet, and young people’s sense of safety and community. By YISS-2 there had been an increase in unwanted exposure to pornography and this was particularly apparent among 10–12 years olds, 16–17 year old boys and white, non-Hispanic youth (Mitchell, Wolak and Finkelhor, 2007). In a sample of Taiwanese adolescents, 38% of the sample had some exposure to online pornography, and the study indicated that this was associated with greater acceptance of sexual permissiveness and greater likelihood of engaging in sexually permissive behaviours (Lo and Wei, 2005). In a study of Australian youth (16–17 year olds), three quarters had been accidentally exposed to pornographic websites, while 38% of boys and 2% of girls had deliberately accessed them (Flood, 2007). This study concluded that two features of children’s exposure to pornography mirror that seen in adults. First, males are more likely to seek out and are more frequent consumers of X-rated movies and pornographic websites. Second, Internet users of any age find it difficult to avoid unwanted encounters with sexually explicit materials. An example of this relates to some computer games, which may have a high sexual component. Such games may be rated ‘for adults’ but inevitably enjoy a high level of participation by young people. It is also important to note that such exposure is not unique to the new technologies, but take place through more traditional media such as television, where broadcasting times of erotic and sexual material (for example, in the Philippines) may occur during times when children are likely to be viewers. One factor that may be of significance here relates to the controllability of exposure, and it may be that there are differences in the impact of accidental exposure to that of purposeful exposure. Fug (2008) has noted that there are a number of minors who are surprised by the content of the material that they inadvertently happen upon when using the Internet. Unexpected or partial access to material may be an important issue, and Hargrave and Livingstone (2006) have suggested that, “The newer technologies (including video but also the Internet and mobile communications) allow content to be seen out of context. One may see sets of trailers rather than the storyline in which to put the content. Editorial context has always been important in content regulation guidelines (eg, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), or the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries – Ofcom), but it may prove difficult to build into parallel guidelines for new media. However, it is clear from research on children’s accidental exposure to pornography on the Internet that unexpected and decontextualised content can be particularly upsetting. This poses a challenge for regulators” (p. 205). Child Pornography and Sexual Exploitation of Children Online |59
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CHILD PORNOGRAPHY AND SEXUAL EXPLOI
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Child Pornography and Sexual Exploi
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6.1.5 Media co-operation 95 6.1.6 E
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Executive Summary Ü This thematic
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importance for children who are sam
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Actions to be achieved by 2013 Toge
Page 15 and 16: Positive advances were also noted,
Page 17 and 18: 2. Adult perpetrators of abuse 2.1
Page 19 and 20: 2 (c) defined child pornography as,
Page 21 and 22: Taylor, 2002). In part, this relate
Page 23 and 24: Level 7: Explicit Sexual Activity.
Page 25 and 26: and carefree the child seems to be,
Page 27 and 28: Society (External Experts Study Gro
Page 29 and 30: 2.3 The Internet sex offender, the
Page 31 and 32: e criminalised before the offender
Page 33 and 34: Non-secure collector: This person p
Page 35 and 36: This section examines the potential
Page 37 and 38: about sexually abusive practices an
Page 39 and 40: Activity Number Percentage Physical
Page 41 and 42: searched for files on Gnutella are
Page 43 and 44: for a minimum of several months, wi
Page 45 and 46: develop a risk assessment that will
Page 47 and 48: 3. Child victims of abuse via the n
Page 49 and 50: that a more conservative estimate w
Page 51 and 52: States need to demonstrate investme
Page 53 and 54: we investigate such cases and how w
Page 55 and 56: Table 5: Disclosure of abuse throug
Page 57 and 58: Silbert (1989) made reference to th
Page 59 and 60: they will have had no control over
Page 61 and 62: 3.3 Children persuaded and coerced
Page 63 and 64: all crimes in which the victim thou
Page 65: situation have reported to one of t
Page 69 and 70: disorders, for young offenders with
Page 71 and 72: ealising how widely they could be c
Page 73 and 74: contexts, be seen as a consequence
Page 75 and 76: some people they connect with onlin
Page 77 and 78: Two studies by Lwin et al. (2008) l
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Page 81 and 82: 4.5.2 Young people accessing child
Page 83 and 84: Some abusers intent on grooming you
Page 85 and 86: or young person’s experience of b
Page 87 and 88: for different psychosocial problems
Page 89 and 90: A recent study from Ukraine demonst
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Page 93 and 94: definition in Article 20 - Offences
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Page 101 and 102: the vast majority who met someone o
Page 103 and 104: 6.1.6 Evaluation of impact Few info
Page 105 and 106: most countries. However, such image
Page 107 and 108: of online child sexual abuse conten
Page 109 and 110: gambling). Based on research commis
Page 111 and 112: 7. Recommendations In preparation o
Page 113 and 114: Endnotes 1 Dr. Ethel Quayle, COPINE
Page 115 and 116: Bensimon, P. The role of pornograph
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Flood, M. Exposure to pornography a
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Joyce, E. and Kraut, R. Predicting
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Mitchell, K.J., Finkelhor, D. and W
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Shukan Bunshun. Yoji Rape Bon ga Ba
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Wolak, J., Finkelhor, D., Mitchell,
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