Interpol’s URL list is India’s best weapon

In what would be a major boost to its drive against child sexual exploitation by pedophiles, India can now look forward to greater Interpol support in cracking down on the crime.

Interpol has decided to maintain and disseminate a worldwide list of URLs (Internet addresses) of websites that publish child abuse material of “severe nature” and provide technical assistance in tackling such sites. The information would facilitate member countries like India to use their respective anti-child pornography laws against these sites.

A confidential draft resolution of the Interpol on Combating Sexual Exploitation of Children on the Internet using all available technical solutions, including access blocking by Interpol member countries, notes that the dissemination of child sexual abuse images via Internet has significantly increased in recent years.

The draft resolution, a copy of which is with The Pioneer, says Interpol could play a major role in checking such crimes.

“…Interpol can play a major role in detecting, disrupting and dismantling networks, organisations or structures used for the production and/or distribution of child sexual abuse images, and in identifying and rescuing the victims as well as identifying and arresting offenders,” the draft resolution presented at the 78th session of Interpol held at Singapore last month stated.

With reports of increasing number of incidents related to child abuse in India, mostly by foreign tourists frequenting the coastal States, the implementation of the move will help in checking the menace to a large extent.

Recent reports have highlighted the problem in coastal regions like Goa, Orissa and southern States where foreign tourists have been charged with child abuse by luring the innocent victims with gifts, filming the exploitation and uploading them on the Net. There have been cases where even inmates of orphanages have been exploited by pedophiles.

For instances, coastal areas of Calangute, Candolim and Baga in Goa have been converted into a paedophiles’ paradise. Kovalam in Kerala and Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu are following in the footsteps.

A recent study by United Nations Development Fund for Women also highlighted the trend of child sex tourism in India, especially in coastal areas.

In 1991, India and specifically the resort State of Goa caught the attention of the world for all the wrong reasons. For the first time, its laidback residents learned from the local and international newspapers that pedophiles stalked children in their State.

On that eventful day, the small State in western India earned notoriety for sex tourism, a tag that it has not been able to wash itself off. Seven men were accused of sexually abusing downtrodden children at an orphanage run by the co-accused, Freddy Albert Peats, in south Goa. The abuse had international links — the accused hailed from countries like Australia, New Zealand, England, Sweden, France and Germany. There have also been other incidents in later years.

Considering the importance of the worldwide fight against child sexual exploitation, the resolution says Interpol will encourage member countries to promote the use of all the technical tools available, including access blocking of websites containing child sexual abuse images, in order to intensify the fight by their national specialised units against the dissemination of such images on the Internet.

The session at Singapore attended by the heads of National Crime Bureaux of member countries of Interpol also tasked the General Secretariat of the global police body to maintain and disseminate a comprehensive list of Internet addresses that contain websites displaying children-related pornographic materials through a dedicated unit of the multinational police body.

The NCBs will ensure that the updated lists are continuously distributed within their country. This will encourage a constructive relationship between law enforcement and industry. The Report on Combating Sexual Exploitation of Children, prepared by the Executive Directorate of Police Services of the Interpol, will be later presented to the 163rd session of the Executive Committee of the Interpol for approval.

The ideal situation, according to the Interpol, would be that the law enforcement agencies of the member countries produce a national blocking list of such domains as per the national legislation of respective countries. Presently, most of the countries do not have a blocking system in place for checking the proliferation of such websites.

The credibility of such a list, according to the Interpol, is of paramount importance and will be drawn up as per strict criteria. The criteria for formulating such a list will include certain considerations.

The child depicted in a particular pornographic website must be a real child and computer generated, morphed, drawn or pseudo-images will not be included as a reason for inclusion of a website in the blocking list.

The child portrayed in pornographic material must be younger than 13 years of age and there must be severe abuse depicted in the files, such as sexual contact or concentration on the genital or anal region of the child for entry of a website in the Interpol blocking list.

The report says the list could also be furnished to the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to enable them to block sites, even if they are not provided with a nationally produced blocking list.

The move to block access is primarily a crime prevention tool and by preventing the display and re-victimisation of the children depicted in illegal pornographic material, the users seeking such voyeuristic materials prevented and discouraged from accessing it while at the same time they are reminded (by a STOP page which is displayed) that their activities are illegal and may have serious implications, says the paper. There is also a realisation that such offences have been increasing and is unlikely to decrease without law enforcement.

“The removal of the customer base for the providers of such material reduces their financial gains and results in a reduction of availability of child abuse material. This initiative is a prevention strategy which has been successful in countries where it has been deployed... Like all other prevention strategies it is very cost effective in that it has a reduction effect on the number of offences committed and therefore the amount of child abusive material produced. This is a very important point as the production of child abusive material always implies the actual abuse of children,” concludes the report.