LEGALISING CHILD PORNOGRAPHY WILL REDUCE

THE SEXUAL ABUSE AND EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN:

right - in the same way that legalising rape will reduce violence against women!

A recently-published research paper, Pornography and Sex Crimes in the Czech Republic , by
Milton Diamond of the University of Hawaii, Eva Jozifkova of Purkynje University and Petr Weiss of
Charles University, found it “instructive” that “where so-called child pornography was readily available
without restriction, the incidence of child sexual abuse was lower than when its availability was
restricted.” According to Milton Diamond and his colleagues, legalising child pornography would reduce
the sexual abuse and exploitation of children.

It does not take an expert on child pornography to see this so-called research paper as nothing
more than another example of a reductio ad absurdum and proof that the fight against the sexual abuse
and exploitation of children should never be based on research by so-called “academics” but on the
basis of the experience of law enforcement and child protection practitioners. The only people who
dispute any connection between smoking and cancer are people in the tobacco industry. The only
people who dispute any connection between TV-violence and anti-social behaviour are people in the
entertainment industry. Who would be the only people who will dispute any connection between child
pornography and child abuse?

To support his conclusions, Milton Diamond states that it is “important” to note the conclusions
of recent findings by Swiss “investigators” that “consuming child pornography alone is not a risk factor
for committing hands-on sex offenses.” While scientific evidence to establish a “cause-effect” link
between viewing child pornography and actual sexual abuse of children may be inconclusive, the high
correlation and anecdotal evidence between the consumption of child pornography and the contact
abuse of a child suggest that there is no evidence to refute such a link either. Milton Diamond fails to
explain that what the Swiss study really states is that there are a number of risk factors which contribute
to child sex offences and that the consumption of child pornography is one such factor.
Any argument that child pornography has a cathartic effect on users, and thus reduces
offences against children on the basis that there is no empirical proof that child pornography contributes
to the actual abuse of children, ignores a very simple fact: child pornography is itself proof of the sexual
abuse of children. Such an argument, very much like the finding that child abuse images that appeal to
aesthetic feelings do not constitute the offence of child pornography, as was held in the Tascoe Luc de
Reuck case by the Constitutional Court, is largely based on theoretical abstractions and not on the
realities of the production, distribution, uses and effects on child-victims of child pornography and also
ignores the economics of child prostitution, child sex tourism and the trafficking of children for sexual
exploitation. (Fortunately for children, the flawed definition of child pornography by the Constitutional
Court was corrected by Parliament by a more appropriate definition in the Criminal Law (Sexual
Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act of 2007 !)
The effects of child pornography cannot be the subject of empirical research for obvious ethical
reasons. But one cannot ignore anecdotal evidence. For instance, in June 2002, 10-year-old Holly
Jones was abducted on her way home from school by Michael Joseph Briere, a 36-year-old software
developer. The child was raped, strangled and dismembered. In his statement to the Toronto police,
Briere said that he was watching child pornography on the Internet just before abducting the little girl
and that watching child pornography had played a critical part in inciting him to commit the crime. “I
would say, yes, viewing the material does motivate you to do other things.....the more I saw it, the more
I longed for it in my heart”.
 The recent tragic case of Tia Rigg is another sad and distressing example. Twelve-year-old Tia
was invited by her uncle, John Madden, on the pretext of babysitting his daughter. As soon as she
arrived, he drugged her, raped her, slit open her abdomen and then strangled her to death with a guitar
string. It was reported that during the investigation, police found hundreds of images of violent, sexual
child abuse on Maden's laptop. Detectives also discovered a CD-Rom that contained images depicting
abduction, rape and snuff movies. From Maden's mobile phone, police recovered folders entitled "snuff"
and "snuff stories" and "brutal rape". During the trial, prosecutor Gordon Cole, QC told the court: "This
material and the subsequent discovery of Tia reveals this defendant was acting out a long-held
fascination with rape, torture and abuse of children..... He re-enacted scenes from his collection of
pornographic material."

It is not surprising that, in order to bolster his own arguments, Milton Diamond refers only to the
Swiss research findings that “ viewing child pornography does not seem to be a risk factor for future sex
offenses”, ignoring several other studies which found a high correlation between viewing and actual
offending.

For instance, a longitudinal study of 341 convicted child molesters in America found that
pornography use correlated significantly with their rate of sexually re-offending. “ Frequency of
pornography use was primarily a further risk factor for higher-risk offenders, when compared with
lower-risk offenders, and use of highly deviant pornography correlated with increased recidivism risk
for all groups”.

Another study with a sample of 201 adult male child pornography offenders using police
databases examined charges or convictions after the index child pornography offense(s). “ 56% of the
sample had a prior criminal record, 24% had prior contact sexual offenses, and 15% had prior child
pornography offenses. One-third were concurrently charged with other crimes at the time they were
charged for child pornography offenses. 17% of the sample offended again in some way during this
time, and 4% committed a new contact sexual offense. Child pornography offenders with prior criminal
records were significantly more likely to offend again in any way during the follow-up period. Child
pornography offenders who had committed a prior or concurrent contact sexual offense were the most
likely to offend again, either generally or sexually .”

More recently, Clinical Psychologists Michael Bourke and Andres Hernandez, released a study,
published in the April 2009 issue of the Journal of Family Violence, Vol.24 No 3, which strongly
suggested that men charged with child pornography offences (non-contact abuse) and those who
commit hands-on child sex offences (contact abuse) are, in a significant number of cases, one and the
same.

The study involved the analysis of data on 155 men serving sentences following their
convictions for possessing, receiving or distributing Internet-based child pornography, who took part in
an 18-month treatment program. As part of their intensive therapy, the men filled out assessment
measures including a "victims list," where they revealed the number, though typically not the identity, of
children they had sexually molested. By the end of the treatment , “85 percent of the men had admitted
that they had sexually molested a child at least once in the past. The numbers are more than twice
that of other studies, a discrepancy the authors attribute to the fact that this is the first study to examine
offenders who have disclosed secret abuse over time, while other studies mainly looked at criminal
convictions or at admissions made by people outside treatment settings .” In the course of the
treatment, the men disclosed that their use of the Internet was not the limit of their sexual acting out –
“it was, in fact, an adjunctive behaviour”. Clinical Psychologist Bourke explained that the treatment
team worked for 18 months with each convicted offender and “ the environment was one of genuine
therapeutic trust that encouraged the men to tell the truth about themselves.”

While the findings of studies on the link between non-contact and contact abuse do not provide
scientific evidence of “cause-and-effect”, they are at odds with anecdotal reports by law enforcement
agents and child protection practitioners which strongly suggest that the majority of preferential child
molesters collect child pornography. Even the Swiss study quoted with approval by Milton Diamond
concluded that “consuming child pornography alone is not a risk factor for committing hands-on sex
offenses….” Note that the conclusion is not that there is no connection between consumption and
molestation but that consumption “ alone is not a risk factor...” In other words, consumption is one
factor which may lead to the “downward spiral of abuse”, making consumers potential molesters.

What is of concern also is Milton Diamond’s reference to “so-called” child pornography. Why
“so-called”? And if, indeed, it is “so-called”, what is the reality of child pornography? Milton Diamond
provides no answers. The stark reality of child pornography, or, more accurately, child abuse material,
is seldom exposed in its legal definitions, more so because, despite the fact child pornography is
prohibited in almost all countries and that advancing information and communication technologies have
enabled it to become a global problem, there is no universally-accepted definition of what constitutes
child pornography. R L Geiser, as long ago as 1979, described child pornography as “ a frightening
range of perversions, such as parents having sexual intercourse with their children; adults having
vaginal, anal and oral sex with children; children having sex with other children of the opposite or the
same sex; children being raped, tortured and beaten; and children masturbating and copulating with
animals.” The failure of Governments to ensure the harmonisation of child pornography laws and
sentencing policies stands in stark and chilling contrast to the harmonisation of the creation, production
and distribution of child pornography by paedophiles and child predators.

A few years ago, Michael S Malone of ABC News also revealed the stark reality of child
pornography: “You may think you know what the child pornography industry is, but, no matter how
cynical you are, you do not. Yes, it is naked children exposing themselves. But it is worse than that. It
is adults having sex with children, even babies. But it is worse than that. It is the rape and torture of
little children. But, as hard as it may be to accept, it is even worse than that. A couple of years ago,
there was the arrest of an Italian-pederast ring that was taking orders from customers to kidnap
Russian orphans according to pre-specified characteristics, like hair colour, then torture and kill them
on camera for posting on the Web. This is the very heart of darkness. These are images that are more
than shocking and repulsive. They kill your soul because you know that every poor child you see on
these sites is dead, if not now at the hands of a sadist, then decades from now from drugs, alcoholism
or suicide…..The pictures first make you sick, then angry, and finally homicidal…..”

According to a report by the UK-based Internet Watch Foundation, child porn images have
become more violent, more sadistic and depict younger and younger children, including toddlers. One
of the most distressing incidents was that reported in Ireland: As well as images of an attempt to orally
rape an infant child with its umbilical cord still attached, there are pictures of a two-month-old baby girl
in a nappy being raped...”! And this is what Milton Diamond and his colleagues suggest should be
legalised? (Milton Diamond, of course, states that he “disapproves” (but not condemns) the use of real
children in the making of child porn images. But even experts acknowledge that advancing information
and communication technology makes it almost impossible to distinguish between a real and a “virtual”
technology-generated child.)

Another flaw in the so-called research study is Milton Diamond’s dependence only on reported
cases of “hands-on” sex offenses against children. It is an accepted fact that most “hands-on” child sex
abuse incidents remain unreported for a variety of reasons, including the protection of institutional
reputations. Take the case of John Creasy, a former teacher in schools in the Western Cape. John
Creasy was known to be sexually abusing many of his pupils and making video clips of child
pornography. Although the schools knew of his perversions and offenses against children, he was
never reported either to the police or education authorities. When a school came to know about his
sexual abuse of children, he was simply transferred to another school. John Creasy was finally
arrested, convicted and sentenced to jail after he was reported to the police by one of his former
victims. (The Catholic Church is also known to have failed to report child abuse cases involving its
members.)

Apart from the fact that most cases of child sexual abuse remain unreported, advancing
technology, especially the anonymity offered by the Internet, makes estimation of the scope and extent
of child pornography very difficult. As Manuel Castells pointed out, technology “..... is a major factor in
spurring this industry. Camcorders, VCRs, home editing desks, computer graphics, have all moved the
child porn industry into the home, making it difficult to police.....Because pornographic images and
video clips can be uploaded and downloaded almost anonymously, a global network of child
pornography has developed, in a wholly decentralised manner, and with few possibilities for law
enforcement....”

Bearing in mind that child pornography is the consequence of sexual abuse perpetrated
against children, the exponential growth in the availability of child abuse images on the Internet is
convincing proof of the increase in incidents of “hands-on” or contact sex offenses against children for
the creation of child abuse images. Recent reports from the United States Department of Justice
confirms what international law enforcement and child protection agencies have been reporting for
several years – the exponential growth in the production and distribution of child pornography. Recent
reports showing the increase in the availability of child pornography on the Internet include-

 The Star, 4 December 2010: House of Horror, “Gauteng police expect to make more arrests as
the shock waves of South Africa’s biggest and most vile child pornography ring spread...”;

 The Toronto Sun, 17 November 2010: “A 74-year-old Kansas man collected more than 3
million child pornography photographs and traded them over the Internet, a federal prosecutor
said”,

 Front Page News, 14 August 2010: “A 39-year-old man who built up and shared a library of
depraved images of child abuse was jailed for more than seven years.....Some of the tens of
thousands of images collected by Hough of Franklands Village, West Sussex, depicted abuse
of toddlers aged under three”;

 www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=13564599, 24 November 2010: “Two Tucson men are

going to prison for a very long time for child pornography. One of the men had nearly 60,000
pictures, and 8,000 videos of child pornography on his computer”;

 The Times of India, 26 July, 2010 “An Australian man has been sentenced to five years in
prison.....Ian David Blundell, 31, downloaded 56, 767 pornographic, 1,608 videos and 963
stories showing child pornography between 2005 and 2008”;

 ”. VGT, 1 December 2010: “A global task force of detectives brought down 230 websites as
part of a wider operation which led to 30,000 customers being identified in 132 countries and
hundreds of arrests; and
  KENS 5-TV, 25 November 2010: “Edward Olson was arrested on November 18 after
authorities say they collected more than one million files containing child pornography”.

The Washington-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reported a 432
percent increase in child pornography movies and files submitted for identification of the children
depicted in the movies and files between 2005 and 2009. And the results of the Threat Assessment by
the US Department of Justice “ revealed that there has been a dramatic increase in cases of sexual
exploitation of children, including the possession, distribution, and manufacture of child pornography;
the online enticement of children for sexual acts; commercial sexual exploitation of children; child sex
tourism; and child sexual molestation, since the 1990s. For example, in 2006 U.S. Attorneys handled
82.8 percent more child pornography cases than they had in 1994. State and local law enforcement
agencies involved in Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Forces reported a 230 percent
increase in the number of documented complaints of online enticement of children from 2004 to 2008.
In the same time period ICAC Task Forces noted a more than thousand percent increase in complaints
of child prostitution.”

What is even more disturbing is the 2007 Annual Report of the UK-based Internet Watch
Foundation regarding the nature of the abuse suffered by young children: “It makes horrific reading but
it remains a fact that the children in the images we deal with are suffering some of the cruellest forms of
sexual abuse and these children, increasingly, appear to be younger. There is a continuing trend in the
severity of the abuse in images on the websites our analysts examine, with a significant proportion of
websites depicting records of abuse at levels 4 and 5; the most brutal and extreme sexual abuse, as
categorised according to the UK Sentencing Guidelines Council..... 47% of all the websites we
assessed depicted potentially illegal child sexual abuse images in these most severe categories which
displays a continuing preference amongst offenders for the cruellest images.”

Finally, Milton Diamond’s study shows no respect for studies that show the use of child
pornography for the grooming or luring of children into accepting intergenerational sex as acceptable,
normal and fun. In one study reported to the US Congress, 77 percent of those who molested boys and
87 percent of those molested girls admitted to the habitual use of pornography and using pornographic
images to demonstrate to their victims what they wanted them to do and to lower a child’s inhibitions
and communicate to the child-victim that a particular sexual activity is normal and “okay” .

Milton Diamond and his colleagues have completely ignored the fact that law enforcement
agents, prosecutors and child protection practitioners universally report seeing dramatic increases in
the number of child pornography images traded on the Internet, the number of child pornography
offenders, and the number of children victimized by child pornography. They also report an increase in
the sadistic and violent conduct depicted in child pornography images and that they are encountering
more young victims than before—particularly infants and toddlers. In addition, law enforcement officers
and prosecutors universally report connections between child pornography offenses and sexual contact
offenses against children.

The Supreme Court of Canada, in the case of R v Sharpe, concluded that the consumption of
child pornography instigates the original production of child pornography by providing an economic
motive for creating and distributing child abuse materials – the consumers of child pornography
therefore victimise the children depicted in child pornography by enabling and supporting the continued
production of child pornography, which entails continuous direct abuse and victimisation of child-
victims, to meet the exponentially-growing demand. Child pornography is viewed and collected
by paedophiles for a variety of purposes, ranging from private sexual uses, trading with other
paedophiles, preparing children for sexual abuse as part of the process known as ‘child grooming’, or
enticement leading to entrapment for sexual exploitation such as production of new child pornography
or child prostitution. “Children are used and abused in the making of much of the child pornography
caught by the law… Production of child pornography is fuelled by the market for it, and the market in
turn is fuelled by those who seek to possess it…. the link between the production of child pornography
and harm to children is very strong. The abuse is broad in extent and devastating in impact. The child
is traumatised, by being used as a sexual object in the course of making the pornography. The child is
sexually abused and degraded. The trauma and violation of dignity may stay with the child as long as
he or she lives. Not infrequently, it initiates a downward spiral into the sex trade. Even when it does not,
the child must live in the years that follow with the knowledge that the degrading photo or film may still
exist, and may at any moment be being watched and enjoyed by someone.....”

In his introduction to the Rise of the Network Society, Manuel Castells stated: “A technological
revolution, centered around information technologies, is reshaping, at accelerated pace, the material
basis of society.....Simultaneously, criminal activities and mafia-like organisations around the world
have also become global and informational, providing the means for stimulation of mental hyperactivity
and forbidden desire, along with any form of illicit trade demanded by our societies, from sophisticated
weaponry to human flesh......Interactive computer networks are growing exponentially, creating new
forms and channels of communication, shaping life and being shaped by life at the same time.”

Networked global capitalism has exposed all children to the real risk of victimisation by child
predators, paedophiles and the child pornography industry. “There is much worse”, continued Manuel
Castells, “in the current plight of many children: they have become sexual commodities in a large-scale
industry, organised internationally through the use of advanced technology, and by taking advantage of
the globalisation of tourism and images.....Technology is a major factor in spurring this industry.
Camcorders, VCRs, home editing desks, computer graphics, have all moved the child porn industry
into the home, making it difficult to police. The Internet has opened up new channels of information for
those seeking access to children for sex....Because pornographic images and video clips can be
uploaded and downloaded almost anonymously, a global network of child pornography has developed,
in a wholly decentralised manner, and with few possibilities for law enforcement..... The Internet and
advances in digital technology have provided fertile ground for offenders to obtain child pornography,
share child pornography, produce child pornography, advertise child pornography, and sell child
pornography. The Internet also has allowed offenders to form online communities with global
membership not only to facilitate the trading and collection of these images, but also to facilitate contact
(with each other and children) and to create support networks among offenders. Rather than simply
downloading or uploading images of child pornography to and from the Internet, offenders also use
current technologies to talk about their sexual interest in children, to trade comments about the abuse
depicted in particular images— even as images are shared real-time—to validate each other’s
behaviour, to share experiences, and share images of themselves abusing children....”

Julian Sher, author of One Child At A Time: The Global Fight to Rescue Children From Online
Predators, finds the “they-re only pictures” argument fundamentally flawed. “Defenders, in fact, have it
dangerously backward: evidence is overwhelming that, far from preventing physical abuse of children,
viewing child abuse images on the Internet may encourage abuse in the real world. The constant
downloading and viewing of child abuse images to satisfy physical urges has two very significant
effects on the brick wall that stands in the way of actually molesting a child. First, it’s a form of self-
brainwashing – as Sullivan says, ‘They confirm for themselves that children are sexual, or that children
like this sort of thing or are not harmed by it.’ Second, the images make a critical connection between
pleasurable thoughts – which are generated by looking at pictures – and the pleasurable physical
experience of orgasm. The offender may seek more thrills – more pictures that are more graphic, more
violent – until pictures alone do not suffice and the viewer needs the real thing. That process was
tragically reflected in the downward spiral of abuse into which Michael Joseph Briere plunged in
2003...”

Instead of promoting the legalising of child abuse materials, academic research should assist in
promoting respect for every child’s right to dignity and protection from abuse and degradation.
Research which shows the need for the harmonisation of laws against the sexual abuse and
exploitation of children, as well as ensuring that such laws prohibit, on pain of criminal sanctions, all
forms of non-contact abuse and exploitation of children, would make this world safer for all children.

Iyavar Chetty
December 2010

Iyavar Chetty, a former Legal Counsel to the Film and Publication Board, played a significant role in
ensuring that South Africa’s anti-child pornography laws met all the requirements for an effective and
appropriate response to the global problem of child pornography. He has authored a number of articles
on issues related to the investigation and prosecution of child pornography offenders, as well
conducting workshops for police, prosecutors, child welfare organisations and schools. Recently, he
coordinated and accompanied a team of South African police and prosecutors to a training session on
the investigation of computer-facilitated offences against children, coordinated and conducted by the
Toronto-based Kids Internet Safety Alliance, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Child Protection
Unit of the Toronto Police and Senior Prosecutors of the Ontario Attorney-General’s Office