Child pornography Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
The term child pornography generally refers to pornography featuring children. The precise definition of 'pornography' and 'children' varies by region and country. In the United States, child pornography is prohibited under both federal and state laws; under federal law, child pornography is defined as visual depiction of minors (i.e. under 18) engaged in a sex act such as intercourse, oral sex, or masturbation as well as the lascivious depictions of the genitals.
The definition of child pornography differs in various countries. Most prohibit depictions of sexual activities involving children a specified age. Some go even further and prohibit all depictions of nudity of minors regardless of whether the minor is depicted in a erotic pose or engage in a sex act. Nudist magazines with depictions of nude underage persons do not fall under some country's definition of child pornography and are widely available those countries. Some countries also prohibit written works that explicitly describe sexual activities of minors. The actual age in which a person may legally participate in pornography also varies from country to country with some countries setting different age requirements for hardcore vs. softcore pornography. Simulated child pornography such as paintings, drawings, and computer generated images has recently been included in some country's definition of child porn (See Simulated child pornography below).
In the United States, child pornography is prohibited under both federal and state laws with some state laws including more or less restrictive definitions compared with federal law. Under federal law, child pornography is defined as visual depiction of minors (i.e. under 18) engaged in a sex act such as intercourse, oral sex, or masturbation as well as the lascivious depictions of the genitals. Various federal courts in the 1980’s and 1990’s have concluded that the definition of lewd or lascivious depictions of the genitals does not require the genitals to be uncovered. Thus, for example, a video of underage teenage girls dancing erotically in which includes multiple close-up shots of the covered genitals can be considered child porn under the current definition.. Questions arose during the 1990’s as to whether depictions of mere nudity of minors such as those found in some nudist magazines and videos were legal under federal child porn laws. A court case in 1999 determined that mere nudity involving minors does not come under the current definition of child porn nor does it qualify as obscene, as the supreme court had ruled previously that mere nudity in and of itself does not qualify as obscene. Thus mere nudity involving minors is legal under federal law though it may not be legal under state law depending on the state. Looser definitions of child pornography in some states has created controversy when some parents where arrested for taking photographs that depicting children simply nude in the bathtub or running naked and these cases have led to debates as to whether mere nudity of minors should be prohibited, especially due to the perception that a significant number of parents have at some point in time taken photographs that involve nudity of their children.
Under United Kingdom law, a "child pornography" image is an "indecent photograph of a child" - there is no requirement for "sexual content". Nudity is sufficient for an image to be indecent. Similarly, "bikini" shots might be considered indecent. With the 2003 Act, the word pornography is used for the first time, defined as meaning that "indecent images are recorded". Indecent photographs are defined in the Protection of Children Act 1978.
In Germany the definition for child pornography does not differ from that of conventional pornography. Sound and text can also be considered pornography.
In Canada a written text that advocates or counsels sex with a child is included in the definition of "child pornography", although parts of that law have been successfully contested in court.
In most countries materials dealing with underage sex are usually exempt from the legislation when they have artistic value. Some prominent examples of this principle are Romeo and Juliet (the play and films), and Lolita (the novel and films), even though this Vladimir Nabokov's novel about a man's obsessive affair with a teenage girl introduced the name that later became a common codeword for child pornography (lolita) and sexual attraction to underage girls loli-con). Not only classical works qualify, of course - many modern photographers create child erotica, including David Hamilton and others.
Still, in some countries, the situation is different. For example, in Russia there is no special legislation regarding child pornography. Production of child pornography is usually prosecuted as child abuse. Illegal distribution of pornography is prohibited, but there is no law governing distribution of pornography and child porn is not singled out. Downloading and possession of child pornography is legal.
On the other hand it might be argued that these materials potentially give pedophiless a sexual outlet, thereby lowering sexual frustration and the risk of committing abuse. Experience with the liberalization of conventional porn in many countries indicates that the availability of porn reduces the number of sex crimes. In Japan, where art (not photographs) involving minors in sexual situations is legal, the instances of child sexual abuse are extremely low; however, Japan's crime rates are low in general, so this may not be correlative: see loli-con.
The European Union recommends the harmonization of the age limit to 18 years. The Netherlands raised the age limit of a "child" to that number in October 2002. The UK Sexual Offenses Act 2003 did the same.
It was compulsory to dispose of possessions that became illegal. The age limit in Germany is still 14 years.
Images of legal activities are not always legal. For example, in the U.S. child porn defines anyone under 18; however, many states have ages of consent lower than 18. Therefore, it is legal to have sex with someone under 18 but not to take pictures of them in sexual situations. The young person is not even allowed to make such a picture of him- or herself for personal use. The main reason for this difference is that production of child pornography is also addressed under federal law, while age of consent is solely a state issue.
The question has arisen whether materials which appear to, but in fact do not involve actual under-age persons (for instance because adult actors or computer animation were used) should also be treated as prohibited child pornography.
Proponents of such a prohibition argue that these materials might encourage child molesters, and that the availability of simulated child pornography would make the prosecution of true child pornography much harder.
Opponents of the prohibition claim that simulated child pornography does not harm children and should therefore fall under the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press.
The United States Supreme Court decided in 2002 that the American prohibition of simulated child pornography is unconstitutional (Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition).
UK law has dealt with simulated images since 1994, when the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act introduced indecent pseudo-photographs of children. In the Netherlands from October 2002 seemingly real child pornography is treated like real.
In Germany real and realistic depictions were never treated differently by law.
Production and distribution of child pornography generally separate from other forms of pornography, and the adult film industry has taken extremely strong efforts to separate itself from and oppose child pornography.
The majority of internationally available hardcore child pornography is produced in developing countries in former Soviet Union countries, South-East Asia and Central America. Germany was one of the main sources of naturist child erotica in the past. Japan was and still remains one of the leading producers of softcore pornography, which was outlawed there only in 1999, after much international pressure; enforcement remains somewhat sporadic. A lot of modern legitimate softcore pornography (so-called Lolita art or Pret art) is also made in Russia and other ex-USSR countries.
While up to the 1980s child pornography to a limited extent was sold under-the-counter, non-commercial distribution significantly increased by the advent of the Internet. Internet child pornography is distributed by the use of file sharing, IRC and Usenet. It is also exchanged in private circles using FTP-servers. In Germany there is just one case of investigation for possession of child pornography per year among 20,000 people, and the number remains constant. Only 2.7 percent of them are commercial or involve organized groups. The vast majority of suspects acted on their own.
Organized gangs of child pornography users and facilitators do exist, however. Many child pornography networks are operating in more than one country, making it harder for any single law enforcement agency to shut them down. An international sting operation aimed at a child pornography network called the Wonderland Club resulted in more than 100 arrests in 14 nations.
Some sources claim that much or most of the commercially offered material found online is actually bait deployed by law enforcement agents as "honeypots". The NAMBLA newsletter once warned its readers that most of the solicitations for child pornography are actually sting operations. Judith Levine cites two sources in her book Harmful to Minors on this. One is researcher Lawrence Stanley, who in an 1980s study "concluded that the pornographers were almost exclusively cops." And sources in the police agreed:
According to Japanese publishers, among the mainstream audience child pornography (legal softcore materials or simulated hardcore) is often much more popular and more commercially successful than plain vanilla porn.
Such laws in the US and other countries make many related activities illegal: producing, selling, distributing for free, showing, advertising the distribution of, searching for (in some cases), downloading, possessing, or viewing such pornography. Depending on jurisdiction, child pornography can include hand-drawn, altered, or computer-generated porn; written discussions of sexual activity, or written material describing such activity (where considered obscene).
Shortly after these laws were passed the magazines were closed voluntarily, as several publishers claimed that child pornography constituted only a few percent of their business.
Nudism has remained a legal subculture, in America as in other parts of te world; images of this subculture which do not depict sexual activity are likewise legal. The definitions of child pornography in 18 U.S.C section 2256 [1] (2) (A) through (D) do not prohibit depictions of non-sexually explicit nudity.
Some feel that computer-generated child pornography was explicitly allowed by decisions Californian courts in early 2000s and U.S. Supreme Court in 2002. However, the porn industry is reluctant to use computer-generated imagery, the technology that already gave us Aki Ross, Yuki Terai and Gollum, for making photo-realistic child porn.
There is stigma associated with child pornography and most people in the United States don't want to be perceived as defending it. This sometimes leads to overreaction and legal and innocent forms of expression are being attacked on the grounds that they may be child porn. Although the number of such incidents is small, they are often sufficiently bizarre to raise concerns.
In the late 1970s Jacqueline Livingston, a photography professor at Cornell University, was accused of child pornography. She wrote: "I was scorned by my friends, accused of child pornography and fired from my teaching job after exhibiting photographs of my son, my husband and my father in law in the nude." ([1], 14850 magazine, March 1994).
A US couple were indicted for the production and possession of child pornography after a photo store clerk reported "suspicious" pictures containing images of the mother breast-feeding her child. [1] A teenager, who made her own photos (involving nudity and sex) and sent them to people she met in chat rooms, was charged with sexual abuse of children, possession and dissemination of child pornography. [1].
An anti-piracy hologram on the Windows 95 box had an animation of a baby sitting next to a computer and then pointing to the computer where the Windows 95 logo appeared. The model, who was the infant son of the photographer, wasn't wearing a shirt, which led some people to the belief that he wasn't wearing pants either, even though he was visible only from the waist up. After government complaints, Microsoft had to change the hologram to one that didn't feature "naked children". [1]
Young men 'download illegal porn'
This is an Article on Child pornography. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Child pornography Definitions of Child Pornography
Legislation
Production and sale of child pornography is generally illegal in most developed countries, although national regulations vary widely. Some countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and The Netherlands, outlaw mere possession.Motivation for prohibiting child pornography
Production
The production of child pornography may involve child sexual abuse. However the depiction can also just show natural sexual play among children or masturbation. In some jurisdictions depictions of posing children or nude children are considered child porn as well. The production of simulated child pornography (see below) does not involve real children. In some jurisdictions production is explicitly prohibited regardless whether there is a risk for children being harmed in the actual case.Distribution
The prohibition of distribution reduces the availability of child pornography. This also serves the protection of the actors, who do not consent to distribution, or can not give informed consent. Commercial trade in child porn is an incentive to its production; however, most jurisdictions outlaw any kind of distribution.Possession
It has been suggested that the consumption of child pornography causes pedophilia and lowers the threshold of a person's willingness to engage in sex with a child, and, in the case of the additional crime of showing the images to a child, also conversely. This is an argument for banning simulated child porn or porn with young-looking actors above the age of consent.Age of consent in pornography
In many countries, including the US, the UK and the Netherlands, "children" are defined to be persons below the age of 18.Simulated child pornography
Producers of child pornography
Commercial child pornography
Unlike most European countries the US broadened their definition of child pornography during the 1980s.
However if one sticks to a narrow definition of child pornography like the one in Germany, content predominantly originates from private production as well as commercial production in the 1960s and 1970s. Indications of commercial production of child pornography in noteworthy amounts could not be found despite careful investigation. The same applies to commercial distribution of child pornography, for that only isolated cases could be verified. The loss of anonymity by payment as well as the supply of free depictions inhibit commercial distribution. Media reports about child pornography-rings almost exclusively refer to private, non-commercial exchange of child pornography, but are meant to create the impression of a widely spread organized crime group trading child pornography.Demand for child pornography
Available studies show that the majority of viewers are male and many of them are adolescents themselves.On the Internet
There are different laws regarding child pornography in countries all over the world, complicating the issue of Internet child pornography. Some countries with relatively lax laws act as porn havens and original content sources; such countries are often poor, with children that voluntarily turn to porn as a means of earning money.
Examples of legal differences around the world:
Relevant US laws include:
History of [il]legality
Child porn was de facto and de jure allowed in most American and European countries before the 1980s. During this time porn magazines were published featuring photos of naked children and of children having sex with other children and with adults. These magazines operated somewhat openly and even solicited photos from their readers' families. In late 1970s a number of journalists and researchers raised the public awareness of child pornography. In 1977 in the United States the Kildee-Murphy proposal prohibiting child pornography was made law based on unsubstantiated evidence, probably exaggerating the number of children involved in child pornography by as much as three orders of magnitude [1]. Several other countries followed with similar legislation.Incidents
See also
External links
Laws
Law enforcement organizations
Other investigating organizations
Discussions