UK-cited child sexual abuse problem underscores global dimensions
Recent news coming in from the United Kingdom underscores both a staggering “local” problem relating to child sexual abuse and its trans-border dimensions that embrace the entire globe.
The FBI and supporting investigatory task forces across America appreciate well the uphill battle they fight against pornographers and pedophiles focused upon obscene and illegal child imagery on the Internet. Recurrent reports and studies indicate that a flatly huge audience exists for online abusive images of the country’s youngest and most vulnerable demographic.
The concerns of American authorities are strongly echoed in London, where the UK advocacy group National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is headquartered. The NSPCC recently released a report on the viewing of child sexual abuse images online, with its central finding being flatly alarming.
In fact, the NSPCC says that the UK has a “social emergency” on its hands. A previous estimate positing that about 50,000 individuals across the UK participate in “downloading and sharing abusive images of children” has been revised to now reflect a number 10 times higher than that. Peter Wanless, NSPCC chief executive, says that the report underscores “how horrifyingly prolific the problem remains.”
And, tragically, it is growing, spelling a dismally sad trend that we have referenced in past select blog posts.
Wanless takes pains to emphasize the truly global nature of the problem and the troubling reality that crime agencies and law enforcers “cannot arrest our way out of this challenge.”
What commentators say is an imperative strategy for fighting online purveyors of child sex abuse is the continued — and heightened — collective efforts of investigators working across all borders and guided by a broad international — not nationalistic — mindset .
“The Internet is without geographical borders, so a truly global effort is what’s needed,” said a principal with the Internet Watch Foundation recently.
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