LONDON - New half year figures released Thursday from the Internet Watch Foundation reveal that just 0.2 percent of child abuse images on the Internet are hosted in the U.K., down from 18 percent in 1997.
However, according to the report, some websites containing child abuse content hosted abroad remain accessible for up to five years despite being reported to the relevant authorities.
The IWF is a U.K.-based organization funded by the European government. The organization operates an Internet hot line for the public and IT professionals to report child abuse images hosted anywhere in the world, criminally obscene content hosted in the U.K., and inciting, racially charged content hosted in the U.K.
“U.K. ministers continue to press for greater action at an international level, but this report underlines the importance of the work the IWF and ISPs are doing to block all U.K. residents from accessing websites, wherever they are hosted, identified as potentially illegal by the IWF by the end of 2007,” says Vernon Coaker MP, undersecretary for Policing, Security and Community Safety, Home Office.
The IWF report also reveals the continuation of a trend for hosting non-commercial images of child abuse on Japanese message boards and a growing trend for U.S. free-hosting systems to be abused. The first half of 2006 also showed online photo-album services are being used for posting images of child abuse and an emerging trend for the distribution of child abuse videos online.
About half of the reported content was traced to the U.S., 15 percent to Russia, 12 percent to Japan, and 9 percent to Spain. The IWF stated that the high figure for the U.S. is more indicative of the magnitude of the territory rather than the problem.
http://www.avnonline.com/index.php?P...tent_ID=272335
So with about 50% of all child porn content coming from the USA, this really makes me wonder about how we can improve our current laws to legislate against the exploitation of children i mean, the laws we have at present certainly dont seem to be doing anything based on those figure :eek:
The full report can be found here http://www.iwf.org.uk/corporate/page.160.htm
Regards,
Lee
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