Fr. Shay Cullen | A child-safe Internet is what we want

By Fr. Shay Cullen

London, England — I am writing this at the airport waiting for my flight to return to the Philippines after my research on the many means to make adults and children safe when using the internet. I learned that there are softwares that can really filter and block access to terrible web sites that show children being abused. Every image of child abuse is evidence of a terrible crime being committed. The more we allow these images to be shown and sold over the internet or on DVDs, children will continue to be abducted, lured from the streets and sexually abused for pornography. We have to do all we can to curb and stop it. It can stimulate sex tourism and promote women and child abuse.

England is one of the most advanced counties in the world in stopping child pornography on the internet using reporting, filtering and blocking softwares. Jubilee Campaign, led by Danny Smith (www.jubileecampaign.co.uk) has been advocating for child protection for years and he recently accompanied me to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) where I learned about the success that reporting of images of child abuse by the public can have and how filtering software can help make a difference. They say that about 35,000 reports are made each year.

There is a new bill soon to be signed into law in the Philippines and it will help protect children from being abused, exploited and demeaned by the local and international sex offenders that prey on children and sell their images on DVDs, and through the internet. This issue concerns everyone, the poor have their children abducted and trafficked into the sex industry where they are made to perform lewd acts for the pornography industry. These pictures and videos are sold for huge profit over the internet. This misuse is the downside of one of the great inventions of the twentieth century. The internet is a power for good but it can, like everything else, be abused. The new Philippine Law will go a long way to change the situation if it is strictly enforced.

One danger of the internet is the messenger service whereby children and youths can contact people on an internet news board and make friends. Many of the unseen people that masquerade as young people behind the messages are pedophiles grooming and inviting the child to meet them.

In one horrific case here in England, one teenager girl who had her personal details on Face Book was lured to meet with an older man, was raped and murdered. In some countries, children are used to make live sexual acts on a web cam connected to the internet and customers from anywhere in the world pay to see these acts of exploitation and abuse. This is called cybersex and can damage children for their entire lifetimes.

Najat M’jid Maalla, a researcher, wrote in a 2009 UN report – “There is an increase in the number of sites recorded,” she told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, citing research by the U.K. industry group Internet Watch Foundation. “The number of images showing serious exploitation quadrupled between 2003 and 2007, showing abject images of brutal rape, bondage, oral sex and other forms of debasement,” Maalla said. She did not give precise figures. Over 750,000 people are using child porn sites at any time, said Maalla, a Moroccan medical doctor who was appointed to the unpaid U.N. post last year. Internet chat rooms have become the main method for child abusers to recruit children, she told the 47-nation council.

We all have to work hard to protect children and report abuse. We want the internet to be a free river of information but not a river of poison and abuse. No excuses, no compromise, child protection and a child safe internet is what we want. END

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