lines, perpetrators may set up websites with explicit content
including pornography, and select URLs (uniform resource
locators) that contain small or common misspellings of the
names websites intended for use by children. Conversely,
transmission of harmful material to children may be profitmotivated. For example, professional spam operations that
send out millions of e-mails advertising pornography or other
explicit content may simply not care about the harmful consequences of such material on children.184
Results vary widely on the link between non-contact child
sexual abuse material offenders and contact abusers.185
Studies suggest, however, that at least some offenders commit
both contact and non-contact offences.186 While the degree
and details of such overlap remains the subject of significant
debate,187 researchers have documented substantial overlap
among criminal convict populations.188 Specifically, in one
long-term study of offenders convicted for non-contact child
sexual abuse material crimes, 85 per cent eventually disclosed
that they also had committed undetected contact abuse.189
Other research suggests that investigating cases of child sexual abuse material possession often leads to arrests for child
sexual abuse, corroborating the findings of self-disclosure
research.190
Conversely, many perpetrators arrested for contact
offences are found to possess significant collections of child
sexual abuse material.191 Research also indicates that contact
offenders have longer criminal records,192 more often have a
history of child sexual abuse, and tend to use emotionally
charged coping strategies when under stress.193 While contact
offenders report high levels of previous sexual abuse, noncontact offenders report a more complex history of childhood problems associated with early childhood sexual
experience and sequentially abusive adult sexual experience.194 One recent review concluded, for example, that: “[i]t
is evident that there are differences between Internet and
contact offenders related to demographic characteristics such
as age, level of education, and measure of intelligence as well
as psychological variables”.195
Most possessors of child sexual abuse material are preferential child sex offenders, or paedophiles,196 who use the
material to nurture their sexual fantasies about children or as
proof of their conquests in offender communities.197
Preferential child sex offence conduct is also linked to the
commercial sexual abuse and exploitation of children in the
travel and tourism industries.198
In a different category of offenders, families may exploit
their own or other local children by producing sexual abuse
material solely for profit. In some cases, a child may be made
to stand naked in front of a webcam, and the family member
may not even consider such behaviour to constitute sexual
abuse or harm to the child.199
Caution must be exercised in interpreting conviction data.
Overall reporting rates for child abuse are estimated at approximately one-third for girls and one quarter for boys. Only 5 per cent
of victims in a 2011 United Kingdom study reported making a
formal complaint to police. From this small percentage of reported
victimization, only 7 per cent result in criminal convictions. Persons
convicted thus correspond to a small, and not-necessarily
representative sample of the whole population of sexual abusers;
Joseph Sullivan, 2013. Commentary at the Informal Expert Group
Meeting on the Effects of Information and Communication
Technologies on the Abuse and Exploitation of Children. Vienna.
September 23, 2013 through September 26, 2013.
193
Howitt, D., Sheldon, K., 2007. Pp. 139-172
194
Howitt, D., Sheldon, K., 2007. Pp. 123-160.
195
Quayle, E., Sinclair, R., An introduction to the problem. In
Quayle, E., Ribisl, K. (eds.), 2012. Understanding and Preventing
Online Sexual Exploitation of Children. P. 7.
196
Seto, M. C., 2010.
197
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard
University, 2008. P. 37.
198
ECPAT. End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography & Trafficking
of Children for Sexual Purposes. Available at: http://www.ecpat.net/
faqs#child-sex-tourism.
199
See e.g. CEOP, 2013. Paragraph 24.
192
184
See, for example, OECD, 2011; House of Commons Culture,
Media and Sport Committee, 2008. Harmful content on the Internet
and in video games. Tenth Report of Session 2007–08.
185
See e.g. Bourke M. L., Hernández. A., 2009. “The Butner
Study Redux”, Journal of Family Violence 24:183-191.
186
See, for example, Beech, et al., 2008.
187
See generally Neutze, J., et. al, 2010. “Predictors of child
porngraphy offences and child sexual abuse in a community sample
of paedophiles and hebophiles”, Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research
and Treatment 22(4):3-24.
188
Seto, M., 2010. “Child Pornography Use and Internet
Solicitation in the Diagnosis of Pedophilia”, Archive of Sexual
Behaviour 39:591–593.
189
Bourke M. L., Hernandez, A., 2009.
190
Wolak J., Finkelhor, D., Mitchell, K.J., Ybarra, M.L., 2008.
191
United Nations Human Rights Council, 2009. Report of the
Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and
Child sex abuse material [A/HRC/12/23]. Paragraph 42.
II.
Evaluating the problem 29