Protect Our Children
Help us support the Global Campaign Against Child Pornography
As an educator and mother, I know that personal computers and the Internet are wonderful tools that offer amazing new learning opportunities for children, as well as innumerable benefits for adults. But any tool can be misused, and one of the most disturbing misuses of the Internet is for distributing images of children engaged in explicit sexual activity.
The content is shocking; so is its volume. Last year, more than 200,000 reports of Internet child pornography were received by the Web "tip line," www.cybertipline.com.
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| Sheila C. Johnson is co-founder of BET, Inc., and a director of the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. |
Trafficking in child pornography is a sordid and serious crime – one that thrives on and incites the sexual victimization of children. Unfortunately, the unique advantages of Internet communication – its privacy, easy access and global reach – can be exploited by traffickers to avoid detection.
To combat global networks of child pornographers, we must all become a global network of child protectors.
That is why I am delighted that Microsoft is joining me today in making a combined US$1 million donation to help the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children launch a Global Campaign Against Child Pornography. We encourage others to step forward and support this campaign as well.
To combat the sexual exploitation of children, this worldwide campaign will focus on several key initiatives. It will create a system for tracking the incidence of child pornography, identifying its patterns, marshaling expertise and developing programs to fight it. The campaign aims to build a global information-sharing network to help law-enforcement officials identify and rescue the victims of child pornography.
The campaign will also provide innovative and highly-specialized training for law-enforcement agencies to help them attack online child pornography rings. Already, with support from Microsoft and Interpol, the International Centre has conducted training programs in France, Costa Rica and Brazil. Nearly 300 law-enforcement officials from more than 90 countries have participated, and we expect hundreds more to be trained this year.
Against this international crime, law enforcement is hampered by wide disparities in national and local laws. The Global Campaign Against Child Pornography will develop model legislation, and encourage governments to move toward more consistency and cooperation to thwart and prosecute offenders.
Equally important, the campaign will build much-needed public awareness on a global scale, in many languages. The Internet will be one of our primary tools in this effort, for we intend to turn the tables on those who misuse technology to sexually exploit children.
By working together, we can prevent horrific abuse that traumatizes young lives, help stem the tide of child pornography, and make cyberspace safer for everyone.
