Ron O'Grady: Crack down on child pornography

New Zealand has a curious record on issues of child pornography. At one level our country has one of the most efficient and successful monitoring programmes of any country in the world. But at another, we have a poor record in bringing the criminals to justice.

Recent events recorded in Time magazine revealed inefficiencies in arresting known criminal pornographers when other countries such as Australia were able to act with speed and efficiency.

The sting operation, code-named Falcon, reveals New Zealand's anomalous position in dealing with this international crime.

The positive side of New Zealand's war against child pornography can be seen in the way the censorship division of the Department of Internal Affairs took an early initiative to try to monitor the growth of internet crime.

The division established dedicated teams of experts in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch whose sole function was to monitor the internet and obtain evidence on the activity of child pornographers.

The success of this operation can be judged by the large number of child pornographers being brought before the courts. At any one time, between 20 and 25 trials are taking place in this country and successful convictions are registered at least once a fortnight.

The department collects data on the offenders and recently produced a useful profile of the typical New Zealand child pornographer based on 106 cases.

The department maintains close links with related law agencies overseas and with Interpol. Information uncovered here has been forwarded to law enforcement officers in other countries and helped in a number of international investigations.

The department's operation is known around the world and often praised for being one of the most effective programmes of its type.

If the monitoring programme is so good, what has gone wrong in the case of the Falcon investigation?

After having the names of the New Zealand members of an international child pornography ring for four months, why have the criminals still not been charged? And now it is probably too late. Publicity surrounding the case will ensure the offenders have had plenty of time to destroy evidence that would have convicted them.

Our failure lies in a system that does not take the issue of child pornography seriously, and fails to recognise the seriousness of crimes against children. Social workers who deal with abused children will tell you that child sex abuse is one of the most appalling crimes.

An abused child carries the consequences of that event with them throughout their life. It is even worse when the abuse has been filmed because for the rest of their days, the victim knows that somewhere on the vast world of the internet the image of that abuse continues to circulate.

It is time to wake up to the seriousness of what is happening to children, and to learn the lessons of our failure over the Falcon case.

This must start with the judicial system. Under present laws those who collect and distribute child pornography get little more than a polite slap on the wrist for their crime. A few months of community service is the usual sentence.

For the past five years, Ecpat (End Child Prostitution and Trafficking) New Zealand has been talking to government officials trying to get some seriousness into the legislation. It finally seemed there was some success two years ago when the Minister for Justice announced that penalties for child pornography crimes would be greatly increased to bring us in line with other Western countries.

A quick survey by Ecpat showed that this legislation would be welcomed by all parties. There ought to have been no controversy. But what has happened?

There have been at least three parliamentary select committees, at all of which Ecpat made strong representations and received many positive assurances. We are now in 2005 and there is still no sign of legislation. Outlining the important bills to come before Parliament this year the Minister of Justice did not even mention the revision of child pornography laws.

Does it require bad publicity flowing from Time magazine to force the Government into action?

Law revision is not the only change needed. The culture of law-enforcement organisations needs to be changed to provide a new attitude toward crimes against children. In the pecking order of crimes, police do not see child crime as a high priority.

The police force has only a few small units dedicated to working to end child sex abuse and paedophilia. Traditionally the officers assigned to such units have a minimal knowledge of the sensitivities involved, and rarely stay long before moving on to what are considered to be more interesting crimes. The pool of expertise in crimes against children in New Zealand is extremely small.

The lessons to be learned from this event are clear. Our society is not doing enough to protect children. Behind every child pornographic image there is a real child being abused. The more we encourage child pornographers, the more children will suffer.

It is time for the Government, the judiciary and law-enforcement agencies to take a stand and send a strong message to pornographers that their virtual abuse of children will no longer be tolerated.

* Ron O'Grady is the honorary president of Ecpat International and a board member of Ecpat New Zealand.