Child Sexual Abuse

14 Pages 3479 Words

r into pornographic productions that generate $20 billion in sales,” [Swiss Justice Minister Ruth Metzler] said.8

In 90% of the rapes of children less than 12 years old, the child knew the offender, according to police-recorded incident data.9 Family members account for 33% to 50% of abuse against girls and 10% to 20% against boys.10

The very people that parents have traditionally taught their children to trust have been abusing them in suprising numbers.11 “The people who commit these crimes against children are bright people,” [FBI’s Pete Gulotta] said. “Many of them are above-average intelligence, with more money than most, professionals. We’ve arrested elementary school principals, military officers, computer programmers, attorneys, accountants, even a Broadway producer.” 12

Hollywood stars, movie moguls, politicians, judges and police officers [were] among those who [were] being sought by investigators working on what they [called] Operation Avalanche.13 In the end, there turned out to be more than 35,000 individual subscribers [to a child pornography business] in the United States.14

Acting on information from the FBI, Swiss authorities are investigating around 1,300 people accused of buying child pornography from a U.S. Internet company that offered Web sites like “Cyber Lolita,” officials disclosed [24 Sep 2002]. Describing it as the biggest ever pedophile sweep in Switzerland, officials said the suspects included teachers, school psychologists, law enforcement officers and high ranking civil servants.15

[In 1993,] within months of Janet Reno’s promise to “protect our children from abuse,” 16 [she] tried to redefine child pornography to make it more difficult for prosecutors to go after NAMBLA child molesters.17 Unbelievably, the position taken by Attorney General Janet Reno is that the producers and distributors of this wretched material cannot be prosecuted unless children are depicted la...