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Untangling the web of abuse
The people who are stopping pedophiles and saving children

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Author Julian Sher explores and explains the high-tech tools used by the cops and the criminals.

ONE CHILD AT A TIME: THE GLOBAL FIGHT TO RESCUE CHILDREN FROM ONLINE PREDATORS
By Julian Sher
Random House Canada
327 pages, $34.95
Montreal Gazette

Review by J.D. Gravenor
To many, Masha's is the face of online child abuse. Last May, this 13-year-old victim went public about her years of rape and humiliation at the hands of American pedophile Matthew Mancuso. A divorced millionaire, Mancuso adopted Masha from a Russian orphanage when she was 5, kept her in suburban seclusion, violated her and traded images of this degradation around the world.
It would be a good thing if Masha's story were unique. Of course, it is not.
The computer revolution has changed the way we live. It has never been easier to book a hotel room or send a message around the world, but at the same time, sophisticated and accessible Internet tools have enabled abusers to produce and disseminate child pornography, or what the author more accurately labels "child abuse material." Moreover, online payment schemes that protect the consumer's identity have turned this abuse into a multi-billion-dollar business - a bull market for organized criminals.
Masha's abuser is now behind bars, where he will remain for the rest of his life - thanks to the work of law-enforcement officials and prosecutors like the ones who appear in this gripping and eye-opening account. Thanks in part to their dedication, there have been many advances.
It is one thing to stalk and bust those who manufacture and trade in online child-abuse material - it takes a hybrid of high-tech savvy and old-fashioned investigative techniques. But identifying and rescuing the victims whose images reside on countless computer hard drives and other, much smaller, electronic devices is a new frontier. In One Child at a Time, Julian Sher, the Montreal-based veteran true-crime writer and investigative journalist, introduces dozens of men and women who do just that, and he lets them speak for themselves.
We meet men like Det.-Sgt. Paul Gilles-pie of the Toronto police's Sex Crimes Unit, whose decision to drop everything and focus on a single case helped save a young girl from sickening torture and online violation at the hands of her father. Frustrated with the freewheeling nature of the Internet, Gillespie fired off an email to Bill Gates that resulted in the creation of valuable computer tools for catching online abusers.
Sher explores and explains the tools used by the cops and the criminals. He also details the awkward hurdles and protocols that law-enforcement agencies and private foundations face when trying to share crucial intelligence. But his is not an overly academic study. At times, it reads like a thriller, complete with sting operations and stakeouts that could easily figure on the TV series 24.
This account is graphic in its descriptive terms, but never gratuitous. But is it necessary or timely? Let some of the statistics and findings cited in the book speak for themselves:
One in five females and one in 10 males have experienced some kind of sexual abuse; about 90 per cent of these cases go unreported.
About one-third of pedophiles have themselves been abused as children.
At least one-third of people caught with child pornography also assault children.
About four-fifths of child abuse images involve girls.
In 70 to 90 per cent of cases, the child victim knows the abuser.
Thirty-nine per cent of the victims of child pornography are under age 3 - "pre-verbal targets who can't speak up."
Ninety-five of 184 Interpol member states have no legislation that specifically addresses child pornography.
Cybertip (which helps the Canadian public, the police and industry patrol the Web) analyzes 600 to 700 tips a month, of which 43 per cent are passed to police for action.
One-quarter of children have been asked by someone they met online to meet face to face; 15 per cent actually do.
Forty-one per cent of children in one survey said they didn't tell their parents about their Web-surfing habits.
In 2006, 61 per cent of British children age 13 to 17 had a personal profile somewhere on a social networking site.
As much as 10 per cent of the material seized by one U.S. agency comes from older children who are taking compromising pictures of themselves.
About 2 million children are involved in the global sex tourism industry.
Sher offers several pages of resource material that can help parents ensure the online safety of their children. But first, he poses an open-ended question: Can the Web be made safer for children?
Despite the daunting challenges, some are optimistic.
As Masha told members of the U.S. Congress last year, "If we can put a man on the moon, we can make the Internet safe for kids."
J.D. Gravenor is a Montreal writer and broadcaster.
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007