Child Pornography: When Will This Horrendous Evil End?

          It is no longer wise to blindly trust our children with their school teachers, doctors and nurses, law enforcement personnel, pastors and priests, for our children may not be safe with them. Consider the capture of these very people when a huge international child porn ring was busted in Canada, “What was most alarming was that many of the arrests were of people who worked with or closely interacted with children. Among those arrested were 40 school teachers, nine doctors and nurses, six law enforcement personnel, nine pastors and priests and three foster parents.

            In one particularly horrific example of those arrested, police found over 350,000 images and over 9,000 videos of child sexual abuse in the home of a retired Canadian school teacher. Some of the images were of children known to the man and he was also charged with sexually abusing a child relative.”¹

            Child pornography is growing at an alarming rate, “Child pornography has become more prevalent and larger than we would ever like to imagine. It is said to be a $3 billion dollar industry globally, generating massive amounts of money for people willing to exploit young children…Child pornography has been expanding virally on the web for years and the material is only getting worse. In 2008, Internet Watch Foundation found 1,536 individual child abuse domains. Every week there are over 20,000 images of child pornography posted on the web (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 2003). Furthermore, U.S Customs Services estimates that illegal child pornography is offered by approximately 100,000 websites.”²

            Child sex trafficking is an allied industry to child pornography and prostitution, “63% of underage sex trafficking victims said they had been advertised or sold online.”³ Intriguingly, childhood traumas such as sexual abuse, substance abuse, and domestic violence force children into prostitution. 

            What motivates man towards this evil?

            Money is a huge motivating factor. It is said that “a pimp can make $150,000-$200,000 per child each year and exploits an average of 4-6 girls.” This is a huge amount of money for a vulnerable man to resist.⁴

            The world we live in today encourages “free thinking.” (Free thinkers are those who form their own opinions instead of accepting the conventional norms.) A consequence of free thinking within this context is to recognize porn as a legitimate profession or as a means to satiate one’s carnal desires. Once the freethinker endorses porn, there is very little that separates him / her from entering into the horrendous evil world of child porn.   

            How do we Christians respond to child porn?

            First, prayer is our first natural response. We pray that…

            (1) Criminals would recognize this horrendous evil and repent of their sins.

            (2) Parents would have a strong relationship with their children. In many instances, the adverse relationship between parents and their children forces children to take rash decisions that are detrimental to their own mental and physical health.

            (3) Our children should be protected against all harms and dangers. If the father and the mother are employed, then it is quite possible for the child to spend long hours in solitude. This is a sure opportunity for the child to voluntarily and innocently dabble into dangerous domains.

            (4) Our homes should provide stability and security for our children and we should pray against every form of child abuse in homes.

            Second, as much as we pray, we should also act proactively. Our children should be informed of the potential dangers. For instance, our children cannot meet anyone alone unless approved by the parents. They should be informed of the prowling presence of sex predators who may lure them into meeting them alone.

            Finally, we should believe our children if they object to being in the company of people whom we trust. There are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Hence, if our child is uncomfortable with the behavior of certain people, then we ought to respect our child’s wishes.  

            Will this horrendous evil end?

            The prognosis for any evil is grim. If we consider this from a theological perspective, man will continue to sin as long as he has the freedom to reject God. As per God’s creational intent, man will always have the freedom to reject God. Hence, sin and evil will continue to exist.

            Therefore, as much as this is a bitter pill to swallow, we need to come to terms that child porn will continue exist. (The authorities will crack down on child porn, and they may succeed in busting the various child porn mafias, but as long as man possesses the innate potential to be depraved, child porn and other evils will, very minimally, continue to exist.)

            This is not to assume a defeatist position. But this is rather a pragmatic position to adopt. This evil could only be minimized if the authorities relentlessly crack down the evil of child porn, child sex trafficking and child prostitution. However, we cannot think that the sole responsibility of cracking down on this horrendous evil lies only with the governing authorities. Every family ought to be the precinct of utmost stability and security for the children.

Endnotes:

¹http://fightthenewdrug.org/400-children-rescued-hundreds-of-adults-arrested-after-police-take-down-child-porn-empire/

²Ibid.

³https://www.wearethorn.org/child-trafficking-statistics/

⁴Ibid.