Many reacted with recoil and shock yesterday, as the news that a Maltese man solicited web-cam sex action from a 10-year-old child.
We should not be so shocked. It is becoming apparent that these things happen all the time and that tens of thousands of children are being forced to work in the cybersex industry, chatting online to perverts who pay to chat to underage children and watch them engage in sexual activity.
The thought is stomach turning, and the sense of national shame at the fact that a Maltese man solicited the services of a child in forced sex labour was palpable on the news portal comment sections and on social media.
The way that the man was caught, though, restores some faith in the human race. Sweetie is not real. She is a computer generated model which was created by the awareness group Terre des homes – stop child exploitation.
The group, based in the Netherlands created Sweetie. She was given an online presence and marketed – as thousands of other children are – as a 10 year old, selling webcam sexual services online.
In the space of 10 weeks, over 1,000 men from countries all over the world made contact with Sweetie, soliciting her services. The list, compiled by the organization, was passed on to Interpol and one hopes that they will in turn be sent off to local police jurisdictions to ensure that arrests are made.
The world changes at a very fast pace. Before, child porn was thought to be something that involved pictures and videos being posted and shared online where individuals would share between them. Obviously, given the horrific nature of the crime, groups tended to be closed and very tight-knit, making them very difficult to bust.
But this new phenomenon, whereby people pay to ‘chat’ with underage children, is something completely different. Ruthless sex exploitation groups just hook up a PC to a webcam and that’s all they need to do. No one can really find out who is doing what unless they are specifically looking for it, making the operations very hard to trace.
The authorities can combat such practices by embarking on operations such as this one, whereby ‘fake’ children can be used to reel in the pedophiles who seek them out. We doubt that there are any such operations hosted in Malta, but crimes against children are inexcusable and police forces around the world must work together to weed out these predators. Moreover, just like anywhere in the world, pedophiles use public chat rooms to groom potential victims. There is a pattern to it all. People who seek out child porn do become abusers, it is a scientifically documented fact. In this particular aspect, the only way to protect children is for parents to be familiar with the internet and understand the workings of chat rooms. Children themselves must also be given the knowledge to spot a pedophile. Just a couple of generations ago, it used to be, don’t accept lifts off strangers and don’t accept sweets off old men. But our reality has changed, the cyber world is sometimes more dangerous than the real one.