INTERNET IMAGES of children being sexually abused are crime scenes, not just pornography, and require a greater global policing effort, a conference in Dublin has heard.
Senior gardaí and international police experts in child protection told the annual Cari (Children at Risk in Ireland) conference that the problem of sexual exploitation and abuse of children online needs to be taken more seriously.
"The language used to describe this problem is important. We are not dealing with pornography here, we don't want in any way to give the impression that this could be related to something consensual. When people look at these images they are looking at crime scenes, not pornography," Det Sgt Michael Moran, who works with Interpol, told the conference.
International and local police were fighting a "constant battle" in relation to trying to identify children being abused on the internet and crack down on their abusers Det Sgt Moran said, and there was a need for international funding to combat the problem.
"This is a global problem and needs a global response. The internet has created a whole new set of challenges for law enforcement agencies. A global security initiative funded internationally and administered by Interpol is something we're pushing for."
Det Sgt Michael Lynch of the Garda paedophile unit said there was a need for greater co-operation between internet service providers (ISPs) and law-enforcement agencies.
"Ourselves and other police forces are getting better at detecting these crimes but there is a need to block the websites that distribute images of children being raped and sexually abused and that is a matters for the ISPs."
There was also a need for parents to have a greater involvement in protecting their children from exploitation or abuse online, he said. "Parents need to educate themselves, they have to know how the technology works and there is no better teacher than their own child."
Parents needed to ensure they understood how social networking sites such as Bebo and Facebook worked and to know with whom their child was communicating online, Det Sgt Lynch added.
