Acting Against Child Predators - PAPA

Good post! Although I am not a parent, I do take this issue very seriously and am overjoyed to hear about PAPA and their efforts to make the online landscape safer for children. Those statistics are pretty scary and unfortunately reflect the society we live in today. In addition to efforts being made to police the internet, parents need to be very involved with their kids and know exactly what they’re doing online. I know NetSmartz411.org is a site that teaches parents ways to monitor their kids and keep them safer. While it’s necessary to get law enforcement involved, I think ultimately its up to parents to teach there kids safe internet habits.

Very useful information.. Although i don’t have any child yet, but i’m happy that PAPA have an online landscape safer for children. I hope to see your updated soon.

Those stats are shocking, though not surprising. The internet is a minefield of sexual predation whatever age, but the young and vulnerable don’t have the tools we adults do to deal with such situations. Though 1 certainly isn’t a lonely number where online paedophilia is concerned, if PAPA can save one child, as you so rightly say, it’s worth it.

Thank you for supporting the Parents Against Predators Act movement. I just returned from Greece where I spoke at the European American Women’s Council on “Children and Technology — Dangers and Solutions”.

I’d like to share with you some statistics not presented in this blog:
· According to the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, “19% of victims of child pornography are 3 years of age and under”.
· Cyberspace is home to more than 1 million images of tens of thousands of children being subjected to sexual abuse and exploitation.
· A 2002 report by ECPAT International and the Bangkok Post estimated that 100,000 child pornography websites on the Internet in 2001.
· In 2003, the National Criminal Intelligence Service in the United Kingdom estimated that child pornography web sites had doubled worldwide — that half of the sites are hosted in the United States and that the number of sites in Russia had doubled.
· According to the Internet Watch Foundation in the United Kingdom, there has been a 1500% increase in the number of child pornography images since 1997.

Child pornography is a global crisis.

Statistics show that child pornography is the fastest growing of all Internet businesses and is estimated to be a 12 billion dollar industry, netting more than all online music sales worldwide!

And although I am an Internet safety education speaker, trainer, and consultant and talk to youth on how not to be victimized online or how adults can help keep their children safe from online predators, make no mistake: Child pornography is NOT an Internet issue. The means of production and distribution should never be confused with the motive.

Crime chases dollars. The motive is to make money off of the pathological gratification of the sexual exploitation and torture of children

People who simply “look at these images” believe that to just look at them is a victimless crime. It clearly is not. These images are of actual human children. We must treat the so-called “simple possession” of child pornography as the heinous crime that it is.

The images depicted are those of a crime scene.

There is absolutely nothing good about the murder and sexual violation of children. Yes, I mean “murder”. The very purchase of such an image is like putting a gun in the hand of the victim because that is what the purchasers of these images are doing. They are killing the souls, hopes, and dreams of these children ever having a childhood, and in many cases of ever being able to live a normal or productive life.

These images, once on the Internet, are there forever.

We need to be tough on those who purchase child pornography. Rather than just being charged with “simple possession”, the buyers of this material should be facing felony conviction charges with mandated prison sentences and registration as a sex offender. Unless the buyers are deterred, the sellers and their networks and syndicates will continue to provide product. Sadly, that product is otherwise known as “the lives of those children”.

As you are reading this, there are people “harvesting” children. I say, “harvesting” because the purpose for which they are giving birth to these innocent beings is for the sole purpose of selling them to a child pornography syndicate where unspeakable and heinous crimes will be perpetrated upon them. I know this is harsh to read, but sadly… it is true. Thus, buying child pornography is committing a crime against humanity. It is subsidizing the rape, torture, and sometimes the actual murder of children!

If we don’t stop the buyers, there will always be sellers… and there will always be syndicates looking for more children.

A significant number of our youth know how to be safe online, but are “choosing” to give out personal identifying information and post inappropriate photos of themselves on social networking sites that put them in harm’s way… thinking that nothing will ever happen to them! I wish that were true. Sadly, some of them will have their lives cut short.

So, what is the solution? We need stricter laws, and judges to impose stricter sentences requiring the buyer to spend time in prison and register as a convicted sex offender. Recently, I was speaking to a law enforcement officer who told me about a recent case where a father was convicted for sexually penetrating his 4 month old child. His sentence was “set aside”, thus he didn’t serve any time in prison, and to make matters worse, he was still allowed to live in his household with that child. How can that be?! My question to that judge, or any judge who meters out a sentence like that is: Who are you protecting, the perpetrator or the child? These judges need to be judged. Would the sentence be different if it were “their child”?

We also need everyone to know about child pornography, the illegal trafficking of children and how the Internet is gateway into this underbelly of inhumanity. We all need to take a stand and say “NO MORE”.

I have authored proposed federal legislation that you may read about at the http://www.supportpapa.com website and am launching the “Parents Against Predators Act” (aka “PAPA”) Internet Safety Education and Outreach Campaign” to bridge the ever-widening gap between youth and adults so that each will take ownership, both solely and jointly, of online safety while spreading the message to predators that “their cyber playground is closed and their community is watching”. This is a 3 year campaign that requires $15 million dollars to 1) educate and empower 1 million youth and adults to implement safe and responsible online strategies and 2) to shut down 10,000 child pornography websites.

supportpapa.com is looking for corporate sponsorships and private donations to help to support this campaign financially. But financial support isn’t the only way to get involved. Go to the website: http://www.supportpapa.com. Contact me at suzanne@supportpapa.com to learn how you can get involved. Be part of this movement. and know that it is not only for those in America. The supportpapa movement is global. Be a part of the team!

Albert Einstein said: “The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”

Now you know the evil. What are you going to do about it?

Thank you all for commenting and sharing your thoughts. Seldom do we get the chance to really act on things we want to correct. We give a few dollars or support a child somewhere on the globe, but we are so busy, so pushed and until this latest information venue somewhat helpless to do very much.

We have the tools now to change so much. If we don’t do it, what will the people who follow us say. How will we be remembered? We are only here for a little while, we have to make something of it. Always, Phil

As a guy with three daughters, I agree that this is a major problem. No doubt about it.

That’s why, as a parent, I am responsible for what my girls see, how much access they get, and what they do on the computer / Internet.

I hate to be a wet blanket, but the problem is that we’re going to spend a lot of resources on PAPA and it doesn’t really do anything about the problem.

We still guess that we have over 1,000 sexual predators that came to Houston from New Orleans due to Katrina. Why can’t we find them? Because they don’t register and they’re using fake names.

This legislation says that registered offenders, who know that they’re being targeted by this law, are going to go ahead and use their real name anyway. Does that make any sense?

Are we saying that the people who are fully cognizant of the risks that they’re taking and the laws that they’re breaking are suddenly going to decide it isn’t worth it?

In reality, this law is an extra measure of punishment for re-offenders (it does nothing against first-time offenders).

If that’s the idea, then why don’t we focus our effort on toughening the existing child predator / sexual offender laws?

Focus on making “strike two” in existing laws a much more severe penalty. Personally, I wouldn’t mind making “strike one” a significantly more severe mandatory penalty.

I love my girls, but this law isn’t the solution to the predator problem.

Dan

Dan, if PAPA will get to save the life of just one child, this will matter. It WILL make a difference.
The problem (and maybe you are not aware of this) is that there are no real laws against online sexual predators, and no real monitoring. This is what PAPA tries to achieve.
Then PAPA goes against child pornography too. The issues we are fighting against have nothing to do with the way you educate your daughters. Sexual offenders are criminals and they need to be punished. By forcing them to use their real names online, all their actions are easier to track.
I understand your points and if you have a better idea on how to stop the predator problem, please share it with us. Join our efforts instead of going all negative about the campaign.

This is why I was hesitant to post anything in the first place. I’m not, in fact, going “all negative”. I’m going “all practical”.

You have to understand that most laws (including this one) cannot save the life of *any* children. That’s because all they can do is increase the punishment after something has been done, not prevent it from happening.

For predators who are already planning on committing a major Felony (whether that’s child pornography or trying to lure a child), adding to their sentence isn’t going to stop them from using a false name.

All laws can potentially do is keep *additional* people from suffering. If the recidivism rate among child predators is high (which everything I’ve seen says it is), then we either need to lock them up longer the first time or come up with a more effective punishment.

There are, in fact, many laws against online sexual predators, although most of them are at the state level.
And possession and transmission of child pornography is already illegal at the Federal level.

I completely understand the frustration of “We have to do *some*thing!” Why not join with others who have already created laws to amend the existing ones (which is a much easier process) than try to create a new law which requires new funding, administration, and enforcement?

I don’t mean to rain on your parade. Just to nudge you in a direction that already has a full head of steam behind it and is more likely to succeed.

Dan

It is practical to examine the possible effects of actions in every case. However, not making laws because there are criminals seems a little non-productive as well. I think this act will fortify the existing systems and at least provide some level of safety beyond what already exists

No, it will not stop predators! It is a step, a simple step in the right direction. If you read the site there are plans to in fact chenge sentencing and discussion about programs to help people who are sick psychologically with programs that actually work.

I think the big thing here is to galvanize this new voice people have here on the Web. Passing this act based, at least in part, leads to a whole range of empowerments for every day paople like you and I. So much of our individual freedom an voice has been taken away, but now we can and should effect change where we see it needs to be.

This can now be inflicted on the houses of power not via a union or some labor lobby, but via our individual support for actual law. We should monitor the conduit of this power (in this case PAPA) but it is good to exert postitive (no matter how small) influence on the structures that work for us (ideally). So, there we have still more reasons to support even stuffed animals if it helps a single child. It is not a waste of time, I wrote this post in 43 minutes. This comment in 4, what is that compared to 40,000 hours surfing gadgets? Not much.

We need to talk about this, but in the end we need to support systems out for good and eliminate systems out to do evil. PAPA is good.

Why not join with others who have already created laws to amend the existing ones (which is a much easier process) than try to create a new law which requires new funding, administration, and enforcement?

I think you are not paying attention. Suzanne has been actively involved in internet safety tasks since a long time already. She is one of those who have already created laws. She is one of those who are trying to fortify existing laws. And what we try to do here it is not a “parade.” The more we talk about it, the more we make parents more aware of what they have to do to protect their children.

Many people say that parents should educate their children about the dangers of the Internet. What many people don’t know is that the parents are the ones who need education in the first place. Because some are unaware of what happens online and how it happens.

Dan, I am not an American. I am a Romanian, living in Germany and working in Luxembourg. And I tell you: there are no real laws against predators in Romania, Germany and Luxembourg (there are laws against children pornography, yes). It’s true that the problem is not so extreme in these countries, but it is a problem. When the US will have solid laws in all the states about this issue, this could be an example to follow everywhere in the world.

Your efforts are good. Child porn is an awful thing, and it’s terrible that people would spend money buying such filth.

And that is where I have a problem with the original post. You place together a group of disparate stats about unwanted solicitations, numbers of registered sex offenders and the amount of money spent on child porn. Then you try to piece it all together, implying that all or most of those 600,000 registered sex offenders are the ones buying and creating this porn.

If that is what you are implying, may I ask where you got your figures? I have done much research, and there is little statistical information on this subject. The stories about My Space and sex offenders have been all smoke and mirrors, because the attorney generals haven’t been able to determine what these offenders were doing on My Space (not all of My Space is devoted to children).

It’s not enough to pull together a bunch of stats that look like they may be related. You need to ensure that your evidence is related and that it passes the smell test. Because if that’s your evidence for your PAPA act, you should do much more research.

Being a former member of the media, and one who covered politicians, I am extremely skeptical of both.

Thanks for the comments.
Mica, I certainly did not mean to imply that all these figures are entwined other than the fact that all the numbers deal with child abuse of a form or another. They are derived from the PAPA site itself and from the agencies mentioned.

Perhaps I should have delineated these numbers but I am very big into symbolism and the representations that can be associated with symbols. These child porn numbers reflect many thousands of children being harmed as do the other numbers. These are not things people tend to fathom very easily.

If everything about solicitation of children is “smoke and mirrors” and one single solitary child is taken out of the reach of harm, then every blogger on Earth taking 10 minutes to blog about PAPA is well worth it. The point is, if the problem exists at all then it should be handled an now. MySpace is smoke and mirrors period, so are politics ,auto dealers, church softball teams and lots more. I just wrote the article as it unfolded.

Always,
Phil

I would really like to have an active role in monitoring websites in order to protect all children from these sick people who try to steal a child’s inoscense. Please send me any information on how I can contribute to saving these children. God Bless