CHAPTER 34. Sexual Exploitation of Children and Child Pornography
Mary K. Sullivan
The forensic issue of child sexual victimization is important for all nurses. Psychiatric nurses are needed to assess and treat abused children; correctional nurses are needed to work with offenders in prison. Community health, school, and pediatric nurses are needed to help prevent victimization by knowing where to refer parents who are concerned about their child’s abuse. For forensic nurse examiners (FNEs), the fact remains that skills are needed for assessment, diagnosis, evidence collection as appropriate, and expert testimony. This chapter outlines the phenomena of child and adolescent sexual abuse and the dynamics of child and adult pornography. It is intended to increase awareness of this problem as well as to highlight areas where nursing expertise is crucial, whether it be in a treatment setting or medicolegal scenario, for perpetrator or victim.
Child Sexual Exploitation
The study of the sexual victimization of children has primarily focused on incest or family member (intrafamilial) abuse of children. Some studies estimate that 80% to 85% of all reported cases of child sexual abuse occur by family members, by trusted friends of the parents, or by people living nearby who both the child victim and the child’s parents know. This interesting phenomenon is in direct contrast to millions of parents who diligently teach their children the concept of “stranger danger” while their children are most susceptible to adults who have been given a parental stamp of trust and approval.
The sexual victimization of children ranges from one-on-one abuse within the family to multioffender/multivictim intrafamilial and extrafamilial sex rings, and from child prostitution to stranger abduction for sexual purposes. The ease of viewing child pornography has surfaced as another form of sexual exploitation that includes depicting children performing sexual acts or in nude poses that are then distributed to others for profit or pleasure. Each form of sexual abuse or combination of abuses can have a profound negative impact on the physical, medical, and psychological health of the child victim and needs to be addressed separately.
Many police departments have Crimes Against Children units that focus on the exploding crime problem of children being sexually abused. Police detectives have become on-the-job experts in dealing with child victims and child abusers as they respond to a myriad of crimes from neglect to sexual abuse and homicide. Just within the realm of sex-related crimes, detectives investigate occurrences of inappropriate sexual contact to sexual penetration. An important by-product of child abuse is an expanding knowledge and awareness of treating victims of child abuse. Law enforcement agencies regularly maintain relationships with trained counselors and therapists and consider forensic interviews as a normal practice of their sexual abuse investigations. Schools, churches, and youth organizations go beyond the daily care of children and have policies in place for reporting suspicions of child abuse to law enforcement or to local departments to assist families and children. Healthcare professionals not only treat the immediate issues of injuries but have improved procedures for detecting child abuse and treating victims who need long-term or in-depth care. As such, nurses must distinguish their responsibilities with regard to appropriate treatment and documentation in the medical record versus collecting evidence or conducting an interview for legal purposes. Depending on the settings, forensic nurses may encounter a victim or perpetrator and must approach each without bias or judgment.
The perpetrators include every aspect of society from family members, to coaches, teachers, religious leaders, scout leaders, representatives of community-based organizations that aim to help children by mentoring to them, neighbors, and friends of the family. More often than not, when allegations of child sexual abuse become known, the parents or legal guardians of the child victim are surprised to find that the sexual abuser was able to conduct and continue the abuse for extended periods of time without their knowledge. This is partly due to the tactics of the sexual abuser—to convince the adults around the child victim that they are beyond reproach or question.
Widespread use of the internet
Only a small percentage of minor children are sexually abused by an adult they meet through online contact. According to the online victimization research conducted by Wolak, Mitchell, and Finkelhor (2006), approximately one in seven youth online (ages 10 to 17) received a sexual solicitation or approach over the Internet, and 4% received an aggressive sexual solicitation. Thirty-four percent had an unwanted exposure to sexual material, and 27% told a parent or guardian (Wolak et al., 2006).
As the data indicate, fewer than a third of the solicitations never get reported by the child. Some children perceive that reporting these dangerous contacts to their parents will only restrict their “freedom” of use of the Internet and result in closer supervision by their parents. Therefore, children perceive that reporting only punishes the child and not the adult.
In the world of the Internet, adults who want to exploit children understand this confused rationalization and use it against their victim to further convince the child to not report the contact (while pushing to extend the boundaries of the child). Children approaching puberty and sexual awareness are both curious and experimental while alternately being extremely self-conscious. They want knowledge (and experience) but are too embarrassed to go to their parents, friends, or trusted adult authority figures for advice. The Internet ideally serves their purpose by becoming the provider of knowledge while offering anonymity to the child. Conversely, the Internet provides the same sense of anonymity to those adults who realize they are overstepping societal boundaries by engaging in sexual conversations with a child. The adult offers friendship, worldly (sexual) experience, and information and asks for sexual contact in return. Adults who engage in this type of behavior, whether motivated by true pedophilic interests or by curiosity in engaging in socially bizarre behavior, have a population of more than 90 million children from which to choose actively using the Internet within the United States alone. Sexual interest in children is not an isolated incident or confined to an infinitely small percentage of our children. Child sexual abuse is a serious public health problem, and research suggests that one in four girls and one in six boys are sexually abused before they reach 18 years of age (Finkelhor, 1994) Since the mid-1990s, law enforcement has directed efforts toward combating offenders who are contacting minor victims on the Internet for the purpose of sexually exploitation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) national initiative “Innocent Images” focuses on investigations of people using the Internet to abuse children. Currently there are 38 Innocent Images Task Forces throughout the United States with membership comprised of FBI agents and local and state law enforcement officers. The driving force of the Innocent Images Task Forces is to employ sophisticated online undercover techniques aimed at targeting people who entice children to engage in sexual activity or those who possess, distribute, or produce child pornography.
Since 1996, FBI investigations of sexual exploitation of children has steadily increased from 113 federal cases opened and 68 arrests in 1996 to 2135 federal cases opened and 1018 arrests in 2006. In this 10-year period, 17,691 federal cases have opened, and 7700 people have been arrested on federal charges pertaining to the sexual exploitation of children. In addition, every state has an Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force, funded by the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies working on issues of child sexual exploitation.
Since the ICAC program’s inception in 1998, nearly 100,000 law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and other professionals have been trained in the United States and in 17 countries on techniques to investigate and prosecute ICAC-related cases. ICAC task forces have reviewed more than 100,000 complaints of alleged child sexual victimization during that time, resulting in the arrest of more than 13,500 individuals. In 2007, the ICAC program trained more than 20,000 law enforcement personnel and nearly 1700 prosecutors. In 2008, the number of trained law enforcement personnel increased to more than 26,500, while an additional 2219 prosecutors were trained. In 2007, ICAC investigations led to more than 10,500 forensic examinations, the identification of nearly 400 children who were victims of some form of abuse and neglect, and 2400 arrests. And in 2008, ICAC task forces resulted in the arrest of more than 3000 individuals, with more than one-third of those arrests (1109) resulting in the acceptance of a plea agreement by the defendant.
On October 23, 2002, President George W. Bush declared, “Our nation has made this commitment: Anyone who targets a child for harm will be a primary target of law enforcement. That’s our commitment. Anyone who takes the life or innocence of a child will be punished to the full extent of the law.” In 2006, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez announced a new initiative called Project Safe Childhood (PSC), ordering every U.S. Attorney to designate a PSC coordinator to employ multilevel law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute offenders at the federal level. The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 (“The Act”) was enacted on July 27, 2006. In addition to establishing a national sex offender registry law, the act made significant changes to sexual abuse, exploitation, and transportation crimes. The act created new substantive crimes, expanded federal jurisdiction over existing crimes, and increased statutory minimum or maximum sentences.
Technology and Sexual Predators
A question that is often asked is whether the popularity and accessibility of the Internet has created a new classification of criminals, or is the public awareness of the threats against children more acute because of the media? Although advances in technology have made predator and prey coexist in the same arena (the Internet is the common environment), child molestation has been an undercurrent theme of mainstream civilation from the earliest ages.
Before the Internet, child molesters had to make themselves visible in an effort to interact with children. An individual child molester hung around playgrounds, schools, libraries, or amusement parks to seek out children victims. This child molester fits the traditional “strange-looking stranger” that parents warned their children about. However, a more socially competent child molester would attempt to incorporate multiple partners and sexually molest multiple child victims. These child molesters often engaged in sex ring crimes originally defined by Burgess and Grant (1988) as sexual victimization in which there are one or more adult offenders and several children who are aware of each other’s participation.
Three different types of child sex rings include solo, transitional, and syndicated rings. The solo sex ring involves one or two adult perpetrators and multiple children, and the transitional ring tests children for the syndicated sex ring that involves multiple adults, multiple child victims, and a wide range of exchange of items including child pornography and sexual activities (Burgess & Grant, 1988). Sex rings existed in nurseries or childcare facilities, in religious cult environments, and isolated rural communities where a dominant personality could pervert the moral compass of others to meet their goals of sexual gratification. Although these crimes still take place, the Internet has expanded the territory of the predator exponentially.
The Internet has provided the child molester with a tool that gives him perceived anonymity while communicating with a potential victim pool of more than 90 million children actively using the Internet. They no longer have to be an engaging leader or childcare provider or work around children at all. He can now sit behind a computer and reach children instantly. His efforts can now be more focused to “groom” the child and to engage in sexual behavior with children and not “waste” his time with children who are not vulnerable. While the traditional child molester still exists, this new breed of child molester uses his skills of communication to befriend the child and to gain the child’s trust in all matters.
Where do predators learn how to entice a child online? The Internet is its own source of validation and education. By engaging in chat room discussions, the novice befriends others who are more experienceed in communicating their desires. There are several chat rooms devoted to the discussion of sexual interest of children. But with just one chat room of 50 participants, the novice is emboldened with the knowledge that there are others “out there” who have the same pedophilic interests, and he realizes he is not alone. More so, the experienced “chatters” make the novice feel comfortable to be in that chat room. The common theme that is replayed over and over is that “I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re all okay” in our sexual interest in children.
Law enforcement working online undercover experience the same education as the novice child molester. Experienced Internet predators provide tips on how to evade law enforcement, find and groom children, places to surf and chat, and a myriad of other ideas. Law enforcement officers working online undercover investigations note that Internet child sex molesters seem to work off the same “playbook.” After repeated discussion of techniques, tips, and habits, it appears as though the collective group of Internet pedophiles are, indeed, writing detailed “how-to” manuals.
Many Internet sex offenders lead a double life of being law-abiding, dedicated career professionals and responsible family members by day, yet in quiet isolation by themselves and with a computer, they can talk out their sexually deviant fantasies. This dichotomy is sometimes so extreme that even the perpetrator cannot explain how or why he was able to coexist in both worlds. One explanation is that middle-aged offenders who are relatively new consumers of the Internet have discovered the ease of use of computers. They have discovered the ease of looking at pornography. The era of point-and-click technology has made viewing formerly forbidden subjects readily accessible without the embarrassment of purchasing adult sex material from someone who might recognize them buying a magazine from the local gas station or the local adult store. Now the Pandora’s box of sexual appetites is easy to explore in the privacy of their home. Combined with the privacy of computer use, many offenders initially explore all types of pornographic subjects until they realize which topics they are more interested in and which topics they are repulsed by. Those with pedophillic interests begin to filter and focus their Internet searches closer to their objects of desire until they find the magic keys to child pornography. By the time they are discovered by law enforcement, these offenders usually have already collected a variety of child pornography that suits their interests. Those who have found that they enjoy looking at child pornography achieve a dual objective—they get instant sexual gratification from looking at the images of minors engaged in sexual activities and they get to refine their sexual interests.
The advocates of child pornography would argue that viewing child pornography is the means to sexual gratification. Others would argue, however, that the sexual gratification is temporary, and the focus of their sexual interests becomes more objectified and more intense. Law enforcement officials have arrested child pornography collectors with tens of thousands of images and videos in their collections. These collectors become immunized to their early collections of child pornography images and need stronger graphic and deviant sexual images to keep their interests. Some collectors admit that merely looking at child pornography is not enough and they desire sexual activity with the child. They seek to advance their grooming techniques to find a child to engage in that sexual activity. Child pornography provides the focal point to refine an interest to view children as sexual objects and to sexually molest a child. It is a depiction of their fantasy and the picture to re-create with their own victim. This is one of the reasons that many child molesters can lead a double life as a respectable member of society while having the thoughts of a child rapist. Many offenders who are arrested for enticing a child for sexual purposes or for possession of child pornography have no prior criminal history. They have spouses or adult sexual partners who have no knowledge of their sexual interest in children.
Technology and Child Pornography
Generally speaking, child pornography is any visual depiction of a person under the age of 18 years old who is being sexually exploited either through a sexual activity or by being displayed in a “lewd and lascivious manner.” United States v. John Ashcroft (Title 18, USC 2252A) provides a legal definition of the federal standards of child pornography. The federal standard is a person under the age of 18 years old. “Sexual activity” is generally accepted as defined by state law and includes inappropriate contact of a minor to sexual penetration. “Lewd and lascivious display” is a legal standard and generally is defined as the exhibition of the genitals or pubic area for sexual purposes. Other factors to consider in determining “lewd and lascivious display” include the level of participation of the victim, the closeness of the image, the centrality of the genitals, and the purpose of the image. An example of an image not considered a “lewd and lascivious display” would be a parent’s photograph of their nude infant in a bathtub taken by the mother or father to depict an act of innocence.
With the advent of technology, a visual image may consist of images taken from traditional or digital cameras, video cameras, webcams, and cellular telephones (both images and video streams). The miniaturization of electronic equipment has created an explosion of nonconsenting images and video streams with the use of spy cameras, miniature video cameras, and cellular-based handheld equipment used on a nonsuspecting victim. The images and videos have a high demand from Internet-based websites feeding the frenzy of a populace that desires increased access to forbidden images.
An interesting dichotomy exists because of the legal definitions of the “age of majority” that exists in the United States. The federal standard for adulthood is 18 years old or older. The legal age of consent to engage in sexual activity in many states is 16 years old. So a person who is 16 or 17 years old can legally consent to sex, but a visual image of them engaging in sexual activity or displayed in a “lewd and lascivious” manner is illegal.
There are some estimates that 20,000 images of child pornography are produced around the world every week. These images are of real children engaging in sexual activity. Another way to look at it is this: child pornography is a true depiction of a crime scene, a crime of child sexual abuse. True collectors of child pornography demand more and newer images, more explicit activity, with more victims. Hardcore collectors are familiar with the hundreds of thousands of series of child pornography and demand newer product to meet their deviant sexual needs.
In a recent interview of a father who videotaped himself sexually molesting his own biological daughter from the age of 5 to 9 years old, he admitted that he first became addicted to child pornography before she was born and wanted newer material because the “old” stuff was not enough. As his daughter grew up, he instructed her in various sexual acts that he photographed to use to trade for new material. He customized sexual acts for a select few clients. As his clientele in the Internet world grew, he was able to gain access to child pornography that had not been previously distributed. His incestuous pornographic images and sexually explicit videos, known in the Internet world as the Tara Series, became one of the most widely distributed child pornographic series in the world. As a result of this investigation, he received a federal prison sentence of 70 years with no chance of parole.
Types of Offenders
What kind of people seek out children for sexual pleasure? We generally think of these people as pedophiles, a term that has been used by many as a sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sex object. The American Psychiatric Association defines pedophilia as a disorder in which the following criteria exist:
a. Over a period of at least six months, has recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age thirteen years or younger).
b. The fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
c. The person is at least age sixteen years and at least five years older than the child or children in (a). (APA, 2000).
Other terms to describe people who act on their pedophilic desires include sexual predator and child molester. However, sexual predator evokes an emotional image of someone who is animalistic and is stalking and consuming a prey. Although this is sometimes true, the term evokes fear and concern among parents who realize that their young children are the target prey that a predator desires. One of the problems with this emotionally laced term is that the associated fear clouds judgment and may elicit an irrational response to combat the fear rather than properly deal with the subject of the molestation. Law enforcement officers use the term child molester to describe someone who commits an illegal act of child molestation. However, the term does not apply to someone who has pedophilic desires but has not committed an illegal act of child molestation. For example, a person who is online gathering information on the most efficient way to entice and molest a child is not a child molester, nor is the person who describes his sexual interests with another person or is chatting with a potential victim but has not yet crossed the legal line of molestation.
Situational/preferential child molesters: a continuum
Retired FBI supervisory special agent Ken Lanning, an expert in the subject of child crimes, expanded on the concept of situational versus preferential child molesters developed by Dr. Park Dietz and created a typology for law enforcement to consider the variations of child molesters on a continuum.
The situational child molester does not have a true sexual preference for children but engages in sex with children for varied and sometimes complex reasons. Sex with children may range from a once-in-a-lifetime act to long-term pattern of behavior. Usually the situational child molester has a low self-esteem and poor coping skills; he turns to children as a sexual substitute for the preferred peer sex partner. His main victim criterion is availability, vulnerability, and opportunity. This type of molester is morally and sexually indiscriminate and molests children because the situation presents itself. He also may indulge in other deviant sexual activities to include bondage-domination-sado-masochism (BDSM), bestiality, group sex, or homosexuality. He is not fixated on any specific sexual fetishes; rather he is a sexual experimenter. He is the “try-sexual”—willing to try anything sexual. His own well-being and emotions come first. The primary goal of the situational molester is to please himself.
Preferential child molesters have a definite sexual preference for children. They are sexually attracted to and prefer children as sexual partners. Their sexual fantasies and erotic imagery is of children. They usually have age or gender preferences, which may be as narrow as a skinny seven-year-old girl with long blond hair in ponytails, blue eyes, wearing glasses, a miniskirt, and a short sleeve blouse, or it may be as wide as any boy or girl under the age of nine. Preferential child molesters have often had their pedophilic desires since adolescence and have developed a well-developed fantasy in which they are engaging in sex with their ideal loving mate who fulfills all sexual wishes. They conveniently edit out the reality that the child has a group of caretakers (parents, teachers, etc.) who may object to his presence. They edit out the reality that children are not sexual beings and are not physically or emotionally ready to handle sex nor do they have the maturity development to handle a sexual relationship. They edit out the reality that children age beyond their age preferential limits. And they edit out the reality that having sex with children is illegal, immoral, and they will be severely punished for their actions.
The preferential child molester is characterized as someone who engages children in sexual activity by seducing them with attention, affection, and gifts. Just as one adult courts another, the preferential child molester seduces children over a period of time by gradually lowering the victim’s sexual inhibitions. Over time, the child is pressured to trade sex for the benefits received from the molester. The preferential child molester knows how to talk to children—but, more important, he knows how to listen to them.
According to Lanning, child molesters may not be strictly situational child molesters or strictly preferential child molesters—rather they lie somewhere on a continuum and may possess some overlapping traits (Lanning, 1992).
Most adults think they will know when they are face to face with a child molester. They think there are abnormal signs or behavioral characteristics or they will get a gut feeling that a person is perverse. Conversely, these same people think they know that a person is “good” and will go to great lengths to convince themselves or others that the person they vouch for is a “good person.” Even when confronted with absolute proof of a child molester’s crime, many people deny the evidence in favor of standing by the person they thought they knew. To do otherwise would reveal the failings of their own trust abilities.
In one case study, a vice president of a credit union bank was arrested for enticing a nine-year old to engage in sex. The defendant had a stable 35-year marriage, a 30-year career as a leader in the financial sector, was president of his homeowners’ association, and was admired by many in his community. His best friend was a retired U.S. Secret Service agent of more than 20 years. The agent came to his defense in a court hearing and vouched for his friend’s absolute law-abiding integrity. The prosecutor asked the Secret Service agent, “What would you have done if you knew of the defendant’s sexual interest in children?” The agent answered that he would have taken his friend “behind the shed” and “beat the crap out of him.” The federal magistrate judge astutely concluded that this is a crime so dark and so perverse that it is hidden from even the best of friends of over 20 years and a loving devoted wife of over 30 years (United States v. Chris Becker. Paraphrase of Federal Magistrate Judge Alan J. Baverman, March 2005, Northern District of Georgia. Assistant United States Attorney [AUSA] Aaron Danzig. Becker later pled guilty to traveling from state to state to entice a minor to engage in illicit sexual activity. The “minor” was fictional and portrayed by FBI Special Agent Michael L. Yoder in an online undercover role). The truth is that adults who sexually exploit children are men and women of virtually every age, personal characteristic, life experience, economic status, sexual preference, and history of offending. Many individuals who sexually exploit children using the Internet have the outward appearance of being normal, law-abiding citizens. It is generally accepted within the law enforcement community that no profile exists to preemptively identify a person sexually interested in children. Offenders range in age from 19 to 68 years old, are men and women involved in all types of adult relationships from single adult sex partners to long-term marriages, and they come from every social and financial strata of society. They work in menial jobs or have high-status careers from law enforcement officials to church staffers, come from business and financial sectors, are prominent leaders or are comfortably retired. Some are involved in children’s groups, but not all. For those not actively around children, the common denominator is the computer and the Internet, which places them in direct contact with children and allows them the luxury of engaging in sexually explicit conversations with children without the fear of raising the suspicion of the child’s adult caretakers.
Male internet predators
Indeed, the male Internet predator has the added comfort of assuming that whatever he does on the Internet comes with a veil of secrecy provided by the child. If the child reports the offensive behavior, the common response is loss of contact as the parent shuts down access. At most, a parent may respond to the predator, using the child’s online identity, and will announce that he or she is the parent and that any further contact will result in a call to the local police. The predator just moves on. On the other hand, if the child maintains contact, the predator uses guilt to create a partnered bond of secrecy and further grooms the child to more explicit activity. The longer a child maintains contact, the more the child feels culpable and the more the predator gains control of his victim. The predator has many psychological tools at his disposal: sexual curiosity and experimentation, worldly knowledge, appraisal, friendship, guilt, projection of blame, rationalization, minimization of his actions, and pleasure. The predator also can use gifts, rewards, alcohol, drugs, pornography, and money to meet the child’s needs. The Internet predator need only find, among millions of children using the Internet, one child willing to take the journey with him. The Internet predators offend one victim at a time but may do so for many years, engaging in sexual activity with many children.
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