Voyage of Discovery

Christa Franko from the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) arranged meetings and introductions for me to the FBI and LAPD in Los Angeles. NCMEC which was established in 1984 as a private, nonprofit organization to provide services nationwide for families and professionals in the prevention of abducted, endangered, and sexually exploited children works closely with the FBI,LAPD and other organisations in combatting child exploitation. They have facilities for the public to report an incident involving the possession, distribution, receipt, or production of child pornography, via a website www.cybertipline.com which then forwards all reports to law enforcement agencies.

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I met with several FBI officers today who have direct responsibility with the detection and apprehension of offenders who download and produce child abuse images within America and informing other Countries around the world when it is known that their citizens are involved (as in the case of Opertation Wonderland to name just one operation.) The FBI work closely with Interpol, and Police forces worldwide including the Copine Unit, Ireland in sharing information to assist in the detection of child abuse images on the internet.

Unfortunately, through advanced technology, producing child abuse images has now become easy and inexpensive. The Internet allows images and digitized movies to be reproduced and disseminated to tens of thousands of individuals at the click of a button. The distribution and receipt of such images can be done almost anonymously. As a result, child abuse images are readily available through virtually every Internet technology (web sites, email, instant messaging, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), newsgroups/bulletin boards, and peer-to-peer). The technological ease, lack of expense, and anonymity in obtaining and distributing child abuse images has resulted in an explosion in the availability, accessibility, and volume of child abuse images.
When travelling in the Philippines I saw for myself how easy it was for pedophiles to access and download images in internet cafe's which offer complete anominity as there are no checks in place as to the identity of who is using the computers in these public arenas. In addition in the Philippines there are publication readily available which give details of child pornography sites and how to access them. You can also purchase DVD's from the local street markets in Manilla which contain child abuse images for as little as 35 pence.

Statistics compiled by the FBI, American state and local police departments show more than 75 percent of those arrested on pedophilia or child sexual abuse charges in the last five years have visited Internet sites which features teen and pre-teen models

The Department of Justice CEOS (Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section) works with the 93 United States Attorney offices around the country and investigative agencies to vigorously combat this growing problem. By maintaining a coordinated, national-level law enforcement focus, including coordinating nationwide and international investigations and prosecutions, CEOS works to deter the production, distribution and possession of child abuse images by aggressively investigating and prosecuting of these crimes. Additionally, CEOS works with law enforcement to identify victims used to produce child abuse images with the goal of rescuing the victims and preventing continued abuse of these children.