Fed Gov’t Introduces New Child Porn Bill
Posted November 24, 2009 1:07 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
In an effort to curb the ever-growing number of child pornography websites, the federal government has proposed new legislation that would require internet service providers (ISPs) to tell authorities about the illegal online activities.
Currently, Canada hosts more child porn images than any other country, except the United States. Reports indicate the disturbing images being traded and sold online are increasingly depicting younger children suffering more violent attacks.
The federal government introduced a bill Tuesday aimed at stopping these sites that display, trade and sell images of kids being abused. The bill, expected to pass unanimously, will require ISPs to report tips they receive about child porn websites and they’d have to notify authorities if they believe a child porn offence has been committed using their service.
A recent study released by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection says 82 per cent of child pornography images accessed by Cybertip.ca involved kids under the age of 12.
Cybertip.ca analyzed nearly 16,000 sites from 60 countries and examined more than 4,000 unique images of child sexual abuse.
Another deeply disturbing point in the report states more than 35 per cent of all the images depicted serious sexual assaults.
Click here to read the full report.
“What makes this particularly concerning is the very young age of the children in the images. These children are most likely being accessed and sexually abused by someone they know. Not only is it devastating for a child to be abused, but to have the abuse recorded and distributed on the Internet adds another layer of trauma.” said Lianna McDonald, Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.
“This is a call to action to all Canadians to learn to recognize the signs of abuse, and to report their suspicions of abuse. We need to disrupt and hopefully stop child sexual abuse and prevent it from being memorialized and traded on the Internet.”
In June, Canada’s Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, Steve Sullivan, released a report listing nine recommendations for the government to end the proliferation of child porn.
Sullivan said between 1998 and 2003, the number of charges for production and distribution of child porn increased by a staggering 800 per cent. Between 2003 and 2007 the number of images of serious child abuse quadrupled.
Click here to read Sullivan’s recommendations.
The ombudsman also noted these images are increasingly becoming more violent and are featuring younger kids. In his report, Sullivan noted the majority of children in these abusive images are 12 and under; 39 per cent of sites showed kids between three and five-years-old and 19 percent showed children three-years-old and younger.
