may try, for example, to use sexual abuse materials to validate
and vindicate acts such as rape, battery, sexual harassment,
prostitution or child sexual abuse.87 By providing channels for
fast, free and difficult-to-trace content, ICTs have provided
offenders with increased opportunities to expose children to
such harmful content. A particular source of unwanted
harmful content involves the transfer of peer-to-peer files.
Offenders may mislabel such files containing, for instance,
violent child sexual abuse material, in order to trick children
into opening, downloading and viewing them.
In addition, file transfer services through e-mail, instant
messaging, social networking sites, file transfer protocols,
cloud computing and do-it-yourself websites have dramatically increased the accessibility of child sexual abuse material. It is estimated that from 1997-2006, the number of child
pornography images on the Internet increased by 1,500 per
cent. In 2001, the CyberTipline mandated by the United
States Congress received 21,603 reports of child pornography. In 2004, the number increased by 491 per cent to
106,176 reports of child pornography on the Internet.88 As
illustrated in figure III, data from the Internet Watch
Foundation (IWF) identified 13,182 webpages containing
child sexual images, hosted on 1,660 domains worldwide in
2013.89
Figure III. The number of domains hosting child sexual abuse content, by year
3,500
3,000
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
500
0
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
Source: Internet Watch Foundation.
Mattar, M. Y., 2006. Protecting Children: The Battle against Child
Pornography and Other Forms of Sexual Exploitation. Statement at
U.S. Congressional Hearing before the Commission on Security
and Cooperation in Europe (Washington, DC, September 27,
2006). Available at http://www.csce.gov/index.
cfm?FuseAction=ContentRecords.ViewWitness&ContentRecord_
id=774&ContentType=D&ContentRecordType=D&ParentType=H&CFID=15055102&CFTOKEN=d2f0d82887026
b5b-5B6D99F3-9100-FBB0-C72DC9EBC4DA7CFE.
89
IWF, 2014. Annual & Charity Report 2013. P. 11. Available at
https://www.iwf.org.uk/accountability/
annual-reports/2013-annual-report.
88
87
Choo, K. R., 2009. Pp. 13 -14.
II.
Evaluating the problem 17