CHILDREN PORNOGRAPHY

Children Pornography

Children Pornography

Child pornography is not a new form of child exploitation, and it has long been implicated in other sexually abusive practices toward children. However, with each technological advance there has also been a further democratization of the availability of images and text that objectify and sexualize children. To describe these images, the term abusive images is now widely used by those who advocate for children's rights in relation to sexual abuse through photography; however, child pornography is consistently used in the majority of laws and policy documents internationally, and attempts to change terminology are thought by some to be both confusing and to not adequately capture the complex nature of the material. As such, there seems to be a widening gap between those who are concerned with the availability of sexualized depictions of children and those who feel that such depictions may be problematic but cannot be legislated against. In relation to this, the terms sexual abuse and sexual exploitation are sometimes used synonymously.

Definitions

Article 34 of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) states that parties should undertake to protect the child from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse and take all appropriate national, bilateral, and multilateral measures to prevent the exploitative use of children in pornographic performances and materials. The first international definition of child pornography was that of the Optional Protocol to the CRC on the sale of children, child prostitution, and child pornography, which entered into force on January 18, 2002. Article 2(c) defined child pornography as “any representation, by whatever means, of a child engaged in real or simulated explicit sexual activities or any representation of the sexual parts of a child primarily for sexual purposes.” This document, as well as the Council of Europe's Cybercrime Convention and the European Union's Framework Decision, defines a child as under the age of 18 and includes both real depictions and simulated material within its definition of sexual exploitation of children and child pornography. The focus of the definition is on photographs that are deemed to be obscene or indecent, and this requires the depiction of explicit sexual behavior or the genitals of a child. This poses problems in terms of how we make sense of, and possibly legislate against, the large volume of sexualized material of children available on the Internet and through other media which do not meet this definition. While there has been an increase in legislation over the last decade, it has not been harmonized across all states. (Ireland, 1993)

Exploitation Through Child Pornography

While it has been suggested that very few children appear to be exploited through child pornography, this is an under researched area. Children are rarely asked whether a camera was used as part of any sexual abuse, and while police records routinely cite the number of images seized in the conviction of the offender, they do not indicate the number of children abused or provide an adequate understanding of how child pornography is part of a ...