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5. Cultural and geographical diversity and theconnection between online exploitation andother forms of sexual exploitation of children5.1 Cultural and geographical diversityThe thematic papers from both the First and the Second World Congresses called for thenational and international harmonisation of laws that would enable more effective policingof the Internet, particularly in relation to abusive images. However, while intuitively thiswould seem to make sense it would be wrong to ignore cultural and geographical differences,both in relation to constructions of childhood and appropriate or acceptable practices. Thisis a difficult challenge and one that remains to be addressed. At best, what we might achievein this paper is to open the debate. Orchard (2007), in the context of child prostitutionamong young Deradasis in rural Karnataka, India, has suggested that, “Dominant modelsof child prostitution presented in the media and many academic contexts rely on certainconstructions of what constitutes a ‘child’, such as innocence, purity and dependence,which are often assumed to be universal features of this life stage. Indeed, the case for theabhorrence of child prostitution is often founded upon the absence of these characteristics.The etiological exercise in disassociating young prostitutes from ‘normal’/‘good’ girls is anessential ingredient in mainstream representations of child prostitution” (p. 2387). Orchard(2007) goes on to describe how understanding the picture portrayed by these youngwomen is not straightforward because they do not present themselves to be frightened,brainwashed victims of parental or systemic violence depicted in most accounts of childprostitution but instead present themselves as girls who do not always like what they door what is demanded of them, but do so out of a sense of filial duty, economic need,and “because doing dhandha is incorporated into their models of filial duty…” (p. 2388).Orchard (2007) concluded that this data, obtained from ethnographic interviews with thegirls themselves, mirrors findings from Thailand that identify the role of cultural, economic,religious, gender or familial factors in the creation of abuse through child prostitution.These include filial duty, a rite of passage, a desired economic alternative as well as a formof sexual exploitation.Why might this research on abuse through child prostitution be of importance to ourdiscussion of sexual exploitation in the online world? As yet we have little understandingof the relationship between different forms of sexually exploitative practices. Often theconnection between one form of sexual exploitation with another is not understood or nottaken into account. In the ECPAT (2005) study it was asserted that, “Sometimes a child76|Child Pornography and Sexual Exploitation of Children Online