One in five minors between the ages of 10 and 17 who regularly use the Internet becomes a victim of sexual harassment by adult users. More than 75% of child pornography is distributed via the Internet, according to some sources, there are over forty thousand porn sites on the network.
Child pornography ranks third in the world in terms of profit, yielding positions to the drug and arms trade. About two million children are involved in this business every year. According to Interpol, child porn filmmakers have up to a billion dollars in annual income - more than the Colombian drug mafia.
The monitoring of Ukrainian Internet resources showed that the sites contain twenty percent of products of a pornographic nature, including children. However, the demand for child pornography exceeds the supply three times. The main consumers of child pornography are men (99%).
To find a new victim, Internet pedophiles act according to a certain pattern. They enter children's online chats and meet children there. Having disposed the child to himself in the course of a casual conversation, the offender, using a specious excuse, makes an appointment for his victim in real life. Children are offered money or other rewards, such as drugs. The victims of such traps are often children from disadvantaged families or adolescents to whom parents give little pocket money. After a real meeting, there is a photo and video filming. But there are other schemes working for the porn industry, a child can become a victim of a criminal, communicating with him through a web camera.
Sometimes parents unknowingly push their children into the porn industry. So, for example, children's modeling agencies, to which the parents themselves bring their children, in fact, often turn out to be opened by porn dealers. For example, in 2004, a criminal group that had been working as a model agency for three years was neutralized in Ukraine. They posted porn pictures and films with the participation of a large number of children on various foreign porn sites. For an hour of filming, children were paid from 30 to 200 hryvnia.
Psychological research shows that participation in pornography does not go unnoticed for the child's psyche. Such children, as a rule, begin to treat themselves and other people as a commodity, lose valuable moral qualities, start using drugs, etc.
Fighting child pornography on the Internet is challenging. Being an open global information network, the Internet does not belong to any separate country in the world. Therefore, each state is fighting the spread of child pornography on the Internet as best it can. Hosting owners are not eager to be responsible for those who create sites on their servers. The criminal legislation of different countries does not provide for uniform standards of punishment for the creation and distribution of child pornography. Until a new effective system is developed to counter the spread of pornography on the Internet, all responsibility for children lies with their parents. They are the ones who should monitor what their child is doing on the Internet.
