An international Internet child pornography ring was discovered by Bavarian police. This special German police unit, employed by the conservative southern state as part of their goal to clean up the Internet, is trained specifically to fight crime on the Internet. This special police team coordinated their efforts with seven other countries resulting in simultaneous raids of private homes of crime suspects.
The raids, code-named "Bavaria," were coordinated after the team of Bavarian police located thousands of pornographic images of children, some as young as three years old, in an online chat room. Raids were conducted on private homes in the United States, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Britain and Norway. Police efforts led to several confessions by child porn suspects on Wednesday, March 17, and provided the police with information which may lead to yet further official actions.
Even though many Internet users and free speech advocates strongly resist policing of the Net, it is evident that action is going to be taken by police world-wide against Internet crimes. As German Federal Crime Office official Holger Kind said in a news conference, "You can assume this will not be the last raid of its kind."
The difficulties of eradicating Internet child pornography can be attributed to the sheer quantity of images found online, Third World countries beginning to cash in on the easy money, and technology. These issues were discussed at an international conference against sexual exploitation of children in Cape Town, South Africa on March 17.
At the conference, child porn on the Internet was described as a rapidly expanding problem. "At any time you can access 10 million child pornography images on the Internet," said Iyavar Chetty, senior executive of South Africa's Film and Publications Board.
Not only is the quantity of child porn online a hindrance to solving the problem, but now Third World countries, specifically South Africa, are setting up online porn sites. A basic issue is that Africa, and other Third World countries see child prostitution as a means of survival and this is certain to be an additional deterrent in the fight against online child porn.
Another obstacle in policing online child porn is today's technology, particularly digital cameras and video. As explained by activist Christa Dammerman of Terre des Hommes group in Germany, "Now a pornographer can go to Thailand and film pornographic actions, go to a cyber cafe and send the digital images to his own e-mail address. Then when he goes through customs, he has no pornographic pictures on him."
For now, online child pornography is a major issue and is certain to cause an increase in international policing efforts. "Raids like ("Bavaria") show coordination in this area is working very effectively," said Munich prosecutor Wolfgang Heimpel.
