According to Pubmed research, 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys experience child sexual abuse. Considering the average age individuals enter the sex trafficking ‘industry’ is 12-14 years, it appears that the prostitution crisis fundamentally overlaps with a global pedophile crisis.
Interestingly, when searching for information surrounding child sexual abuse within Australia, the data is virtually non-existent, as much trafficking remains ‘under the radar.’ Furthermore, according to the Australian Institute of Criminology, the clandestine nature of trafficking in persons means that there is little reliable data regarding the nature and extent of the crime. A lack of investigatory vigour in Australia to uncover the dire reality of our prostitution issue, only fosters criminal behaviour and puts children in very vulnerable circumstances.
In recent times, Pornhub has come under significant fire and public opprobrium for their negligence is allowing the streaming of a toddler’s rape. It is an undisputed fact that those who engage with prostitution are also regular pornography viewers. What is concerning, in current times, is the increasing demand for child pornography. Norfolk’s chief of police suggests that there is an increasing appetite for child porn, consumed by young males and those who no longer ‘get a thrill’ out of adult pornography. Thus they explore more sadistic, more criminal content, and this only fosters clandestine, pedophilic behaviours being acted out in actuality.
Norfolk’s chief of police stated: “What we are seeing is a new group of young men aged between 18 and 26 who have been brought up on a staple diet of going to visit Pornhub and sites like that.”
Behind the screens, real children are abused. Thus increasing the availability of pornographic content only leads to a heightened demand for prostitutes, and unfortunately child prostitutes. No wonder mainstream media is saturated with pedophile related news these days, following celebrity perpetrators such as Jeffrey Epstein.
It appears that society is beginning to notice that a great deal of pedophilic behaviour is proliferating in the dark, and it is entwined often with other crimes such as drug trafficking, grievous bodily harm, people smuggling and other indictable offences. Only yesterday, the ABC and 9 News, amongst other mainstream media outlets, promulgated a story following the bust of a major pedophile ring being investigated over the last two years. 16 people were charged with 738 offences in a ring expanding over 5 Aussie states. 4 children were rescued, some as young as 2 months old. The children in these circumstances are often the ones to surface on dark web pornography streaming programs.
Doing nothing about this issue, letting the pornography proliferate and allowing viewers to access criminal content will only see a rise in the demand for prostitution outside of these virtual spaces. It is likely the demand for children will increase under circumstances where the law does not call out this behaviour for what it is; a crime. By lowering the demand for commercialised sex through the Nordic approach to prostitution, society will thus be exercising foresight and preventing criminals from sexually exploiting those most at risk to serious human rights abuses in this industry – being the children.
