Several years ago, while Jim Gamble was the head of CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) I remember listening to him speak and explaining that child pornography is not the language that should be used to describe sexual images of children, it is Child Abuse, this statement has stayed with me.
Pornography is a billion dollar industry, according to https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201611/dueling-statistics-how-much-the-internet-is-porn
Pornography sites attract more visitors each month than Amazon, Netflix, and Twitter combined so it is vital that we change the language we use when we talk about sexual images of children so that it doesn’t become an accepted term!
• 30 percent of Internet content is Pornography.
• 88 percent of Pornography contains violence against women.
• From 2005 to 2013, searches for “teen porn” tripled to 500,000 a day.
From the statistics above it could be argued that Pornography has, to an extent, become normalised and as such “pornography” should not be used to describe sexual images of children. Some people may perceive these as only images however in each image the child is a victim of abuse and by viewing and sharing these images online people only serve propagate that abuse.
Any image depicting a child under 18 in a sexual context is Child Sexual Abuse and by changing the language we use to describe it we can help to bring it to the forefront of protecting children online. Taking, making, sharing and possessing indecent images and pseudo-photographs of people under 18 is illegal.
It is also illegal in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to possess, create or distribute sexual images of fictional characters who are described or appear to be under the age of 18 (as per the Coroners and Justice Act of April 2009), so sexual images that have been drawn are illegal. A prohibited drawn image is one which involves a minor in situations which are pornographic and “grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character.”
As a proud partner of IWF (The Internet Watch Foundation) we are striving to keep children safe and protecting online, Child pornography, child porn and kiddie porn are not acceptable descriptions. A child cannot consent to their own abuse.
References:
Indecent images of children: guidance for young people –
IWF – https://www.iwf.org.uk/
Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_drawn_pornography_depicting_minors