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Child pornography
“My
entire family depends upon me”
She
said with a laugh as her alcoholic mother stood at the doorway ordering her
back to the family’s brothel.
A
prostitute since she was 12, Chandrika expects to net the equivalent of $ 50
around 3000 rupees for the day’s work/ in an average month Chandrika figures
she can bring home $500 i.e. 31,000., an amount many of her customers don’t
earn in one year.
“My
family, my brother, they sit around all day and do nothing,” continued
Chandrika, who has a five year old son from her initiation as a commercial sex
worker. “everything they have is from me.”
Far
from the chaotic brothel of Bombay and Calcutta, where many children are kept
in forced custody, she represents what many experts say are child prostitutes
of India
She
belonged to the area called the “PINK TRIAGNLE”. A tourist region of
Agra-Delhi-Jaipur belt, where pornography and prostitution is a‘family
occupation’.
Prostitution:
the act or practice in which a person offers himself/herself for sexual
intercourse for money.
Pornography:
a depiction of prostitutes or prostitution, designed
to cause sexual excitement.
Production,
distribution and use of such material, is involved in the business of
pornography.
Nowadays
terms like "child
abuse material(CAM)", "child sexual abuse material",
"documented child sexual abuse", and "depicted child sexual
abuse" are used to describe “child pornography”.
In India, it is legal to
access pornographic material privately, but illegal to distribute or produce
it.
There
are two types of pornographic trends prevailing at present:
- a multi-billion dollar international sex trade industry; also called the child prostitution. This trend uses a variety of media, including writings, magazines, sculpture, photos, drawings, cartoons, paintings, animation, sound recording, film, video, and video games.The sexual exploitation of a child for remuneration in cash or kind.A recent study by the NHRC the National Human Rights Commission found that traffickers are using women and children for pornography and prefer teenage girls for this purpose.
- self-produced child pornography, that is explicit images produced by children. This includes sexting, explicit chat, and cyber voyeurism i.e. viral distribution of nude images of themselves.
The target
audience :
 |
| the target audience |
- 14% under the age group of 18-24 years
- 20% under 25-34 years
- 26% under 35-44
- 21% under the age group of 45-54 and
- 20% people who are 55+
Reasons
behind child pornography:
- economic disparities
- family disintegration
- harmful traditions and religious practices for example TEG sex industry.
- explicit sexual desire (paedophiles)
TEG
sex industry:
TRADITIONAL
entertainment groups includes women are by and large from Bediya and Raj Nats
communities. The girls with their families who are instrumental in socialising
them and making them believe that this is their only future occupation. Chndrika
is also belong to the same group.
In
2007:
Ministry of Women and Child
Development, Government of India conducted a study on the Child Abuse in 2007.
According to this study, out of 12,446 children 4.46%
reported being photographed in nude. And Among these children, 52.01% were boys
and 47.99% were girls.
 |
| Ministry of Women and Child Development, GOI |
In different age
groups, the majority of cases (48.17%) where children were photographed in nude
were among younger children in the age group of 5-12 years. This was followed
by 28.02% among adolescents in the age group 15-18 years and remaining 23.81%
in the age group of 13-14 years.
 |
| Ministry of Women and Child Development, GOI |
In 2011:
M. Ramachandran, Minister of
State for Home informed the Lok Sabha (the Upper House of Parliament) that
across the nation the number of such cases recorded stood at 99, 105 and 139 in
2007, 2008 and 2009 respectively. As against this the number of arrests made
were 86, 90 and 141 in 2007, 2008 and 2009 respectively.
The child pornography cases
registered in Maharashtra in the said three years were 27, 17 and 25
respectively. For the State of Kerala, the figures were 20, 39 and 44 for the
said period. The Minister also informed that among other states were child
pornography was rampant was Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan.
In
North-East Region:
The north-eastern region of
India, is comprised of eight states, Arunachal Pradesh; Assam; Meghalaya;
Manipur; Mizoram; Nagaland; Sikkim; and Tripura. Sale of Children, Child
Prostitution, and Child Pornography India face manifold forms of human rights
abuses, most importantly in regions where armed conflicts exist, like in the
north-eastern region of the country.
It is estimated, that every year,
about 300 new women are widowed since 2008 in Manipur alone. Because of lack of financial independence,
the widowed mothers let their children work, to fetch an income, than be at
school. Child labour also poses additional threats to children like sexual
exploitation and trafficking.
The presence of army in
educational institutions and its premises is one of the causes for dropouts of
students.
In
travel:
Each year 3,000 Indian girls are
forced into prostitution for the first time. About 20% of travelers recognize
seek sex on the move, of which 3% have pedophile tendencies, this is more than
3 lakh people. 5 billion dollars moving child sex tourism per year is earned.
In Neighbouring Countries:
It is estimated that 2,00,000
Bangladeshi children have been trafficked for sexual exploitation through the
borders of West Bengal and Assam States Research shows that “extreme poverty,
floods, cyclones, landlessness and demand for dowry” are among the main causes
for the high incidence of trafficking/migration from the areas of Jessore and
Satkhira in Bangladesh. Sale, prostitution and pornography are faced by them.
5,000 and 7,000 Nepalese girls
are trafficked into India every year.
Within country:
Children are trafficked to and
from states such as Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh,
Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and West Bengal. For instance, among the
23 districts of the State of Andhra Pradesh, 16 are identified as sending districts.
Similarly, in the State of Bihar, 24 out of 37 districts are highly affected by
trafficking in women and children. Rajasthan is also a major source State,
where 27 out of 32 districts are found to be affected.
During
festivals:
Each year, during the Hindu
festival of Askhay Tritiya, thousands of child marriages are reported in Madya
Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajsthan.21 Child marriages are often arranged and
negotiated. For financial benefit in cash or in kind by a third party and,
inasmuch as these arrangements provide access to children as sexual partners,
they can be categorised as a form of CSEC commercial sexual exploitation of
children.
self-produced
child pornography
Perverts are moving from the
playground to the Internet and they are making their way into everyone's lives.
While the Internet Industry provides parents with filtering systems like
CyberWatch, Netnanny, and Cybernanny, the only thing these systems have
accomplished is helping people avert their eyes away from the real problem.
TECHNOLOGICAL
ADVANCEMEMT:
Examples:
- Through internet chat room a man representing himself as 15 years girl before a 16 yeas old boy from 2002 to 2004 when the fact was that he was of 30 years age and a man. That boy ran away to his girl friend at Mumbai from Kolkata. Thereafter, 30 years old man (girl friend) sexually abused the victim, stole money from him and beat him up.
- Air force Bal Bharati School, Delhi; class(XII) student created pornographic site as revenge against his classmates (girls) and posted pornographic images of his classmates and lady teachers in internet. He was then suspended by school and arrested by Police under IPC and IT Act; though Juvenile Court allowed his bail thereafter.
- In Delhi the CBI has arrested Director of a private Company on the charge of sending threatening and obscene e-mails to a woman and for posting her objectionable photographs on websites. He was remanded in police custody and produced before the Tis –Hazari Court on 16th March 2005 and then was remanded in judicial custody. This case was registered by Cyber Crime Investigation Cell (CCIC) of CBI under section 67 of the IT Act, 2000 and IPC on 9th March 2005.
- In one case, a predator victimized more than 150 children for profit.
- In another case, the defendant was a “photographer” who travelled, throughout countries to arrange, witness, and film the sexual abuse of approximately 20 underage girls. The “photographer” then sold the abusive images worldwide through his commercial web site. The initial exposure was estimated to have reached more than 3,000 active traders in approximately 28 countries. He also offered his customers the opportunity to make special requests for videos, purchase the child-sized lingerie used in some of the videos, and, in one case, the opportunity to travel to photograph the underage girls with him.
Sexting:
Sexting refers
to a recently increasing practice in which people use cell phone messaging to
send nude or semi-nude images of themselves to others (such as friends or
dating partners). These may be passed along to others or be posted on the
Internet. Due to sexting by minors, some teenagers have been charged with
possessing and/or distributing child pornography, potentially controversial
uses of existing child pornography laws.
- 4% of cell-owning teens (ages 12-17) have sent sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images of themselves to someone else via text messaging.
- 15% of cell-owning teens (ages 12-17) have received sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images of someone they know via text messaging on their cell phone.
- Older teens are much more likely to send and receive these images; 8% of 17-year-olds with cell phones have sent a sexually provocative image by text and 30% have received a nude or nearly nude image on their phone.
- The teens who pay their own phone bills are more likely to send “sexts”: 17% of teens who pay for all of the costs associated with their cell phones send sexually suggestive images via text; just 3% of teens who do not pay for, or only pay for a portion of the cost of the cell phone send these images.
- This research revealed that there are three main scenarios for sexting: 1) exchange of images solely between two romantic partners; 2) exchanges between partners that are shared with others outside the relationship and 3) exchanges between people who are not yet in a relationship, but where at least one person hopes to be.
Internet:
The U.K. possessed 450,000 child pornography images, and that a single child pornography site received a million hits in a month. Further, that much of the trade in child pornography takes place at hidden levels of the Internet, and that it has been estimated that there are between 50,000 and 100,000 paedophiles involved in organised pornography rings around the world, and that one third of these operate from the United States.
The COPINE Scale
| ||
1
|
Indicative
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Non-erotic and non-sexualised pictures showing children in their underwear, swimming costumes from either commercial sources or family albums. Pictures of children playing in normal settings, in which the context or organisation of pictures by the collector indicates inappropriateness.
|
2
|
Nudist
|
Pictures of naked or semi-naked children in appropriate nudist settings, and from legitimate sources.
|
3
|
Erotica
|
Surreptitiously taken photographs of children in play areas or other safe environments showing either underwear or varying degrees of nakedness.
|
4
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Posing
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Deliberately posed pictures of children fully clothed, partially clothed or naked (where the amount, context and organization suggests sexual interest).
|
5
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Erotic Posing
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Deliberately posed pictures of fully, partially clothed or naked children in sexualised or provocative poses.
|
6
|
Explicit Erotic Posing
|
Pictures emphasising genital areas, where the child is either naked, partially clothed or fully clothed.
|
7
|
Explicit Sexual Activity
|
Pictures that depict touching, mutual and self-masturbation, oral sex and intercourse by a child, not involving an adult.
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8
|
Assault
|
Pictures of children being subject to a sexual assault, involving digital touching, involving an adult.
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9
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Gross Assault
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Grossly obscene pictures of sexual assault, involving penetrative sex, masturbation or oral sex, involving an adult.
|
10
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Sadistic/Bestiality
|
a. Pictures showing a child being tied, bound, beaten, whipped or otherwise subject to something that implies pain.
b. Pictures where an animal is involved in some form of sexual behaviour with a child. |
Case
study:
A Mother’s Story
of Child Pornography Victimization
My daughter was abused
repeatedly to produce images for the purpose of being traded and shared over
the Internet. Without a market to receive and trade those images, without the
encouragement of those who wanted to acquire the images, I truly believe this
abuse would not have occurred.
All those who trade these images
and thereby create the demand for lurid and violent depictions of children are
participants in the exploitation of my aughter. Each traded picture that placed
a value on inventiveness, novelty, or cruelty played a role in egging on the
abuser to even more vile acts.
The pictures of my daughter were
‘made for trade’— her abuser adapted to serve his market—whatever his audience
was looking to acquire, that’s what happened to her ...
Producer, distributor, and
consumer-—everyone who participates in this evil exchange helps create a
market, casting a vote for the next abuse. Regardless of whether they directly
abused children themselves, revealed in the images of suffering, or persuaded
others to abuse children on their behalf (to provide images of the abuse) each
participant has a responsibility for the effects... shadow... comes over her
face if a stranger gives her an expected compliment. The pictures are still out
there...
Now that she’s growing older and
realizing the extent of the Internet, she’s also beginning to grasp the
darker side of the story— how many people see those same pictures as something
to enjoy rather than abhor.
We have no way of knowing how
many pedophiles used the pictures of her being tortured and degraded as an
opportunity for personal gratification ...
I can find no words to express
the fury I feel at those who participate in this evil, or my scorn for any
attempt to minimize responsibility by feeble claims that the crime was
‘victimless.’ My daughter is a real person. She was horribly victimized to
provide this source of ‘entertainment.” She is exploited anew each and every
time an image of her suffering is copied, traded, or sold. While the crime is
clearly conscienceless, it is hardly ‘victimless.’
I asked my daughter what she most
wanted to ask of the judge. Her request: “Please, don’t let them pretend no
one’s getting hurt.”
