Segretariato
Guidelines
THE DIRTIEST BUSINESS IN THE WORLD
by Maria Barrera for 
Worldwide, paedophilia and such related crimes supply a very wealthy, widespread market.
Hypocrisy and secrecy are allies of child abuse: this tragedy is much more common than we think. It is not just the sexual abuse from an early age, but also the psychological conditions that develop in a child with serious problems, that could cause the child to explode in adulthood, resulting in devastating effects.
PAEDOPHILIA
WHO IS A PAEDOPHILE?
WHO ARE THE VICTIMS?
PAEDOPHILE RELATED CRIMES AND SEX TOURISM
CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
SEXUAL ABUSE WITHIN THE FAMILY
THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES FOR VICTIMS
LA CARAMELLA BUONA
WHO WE ARE
WHAT WE DO
BIBLIOGRAPHY/ WEBOGRAPHY
PAEDOPHILIA
- With this term, we intend all forms of heterosexual or homosexual relations between male and female children pre-puberty and adults.
- Psychiatry defines it as a paraphilia, or rather, an attraction characterised by a strong and/or unstoppable urge to have sexual relations that are considered unacceptable by society.
- Paedophilia is composed of a wide range
of phenomena, including:
- paedophilia in strict terms, i.e. paraphilia;
- sexual abuse of minors;
- abuse within the family;
- under-age prostitution and the use of minors for sexual purposes;
- under-age pornography, on paper or the Internet;
- sex tourism to the detriment of minors.
WHO IS A PAEDOPHILE?
- There is no obvious type of paedophile: paedophilia has a multitude of factors that are composed of mental, institutional and activity, sex education, violence, impulse control and sexual activation related aspects. For this reason, it is not always easy to identify a primary paedophile (or the main factors) with a profound attraction to children, from a secondary paedophile, in most cases one who acts on impulse and suffers from various psychopathic illnesses which can lower resistance to impulses, the capacity of correct judgement and appropriate behaviour, leading to isolated acts of sexual abuse on children.
- Paedophilia is practiced by people with different characteristics: the elderly, adults and young people, the uneducated and scholars, homosexuals and also heterosexuals, strangers, but in the majority of cases the attacker is a family member or relative. Paedophiles are mainly men, but there are also female aggressors.
- Paedophiles have polymorphic personalities and frequent sexual contact with children can be considered a continuumwhich ranges from an individual who sees a child as a chosen sexual object (paedophilia), to those who choose (the other extreme) an immature sexual object, because a child essentially represents opportunity and coincidence for them. This would partially explain the continuous increase in sex tourism, practiced by individuals who normally have sexual relations with adult partners.
- This phenomenology is rooted in human history and has been, up to now, hidden as a secret and unconfessable illness, obviously contrasting with basic principles of cohabitation and general morals.
WHO ARE THE VICTIMS?
- The victims of abuse, of paedophilia and paedophile related crimes are children and minors in general. Even though we live in a society which continues to emphasise the rights of minors and recognise the fundamental role childhood plays in constructing a child's personality, many children are abused and/or subjected to all sorts of psychological and physical violence on a daily basis.
- Sexual abuse and maltreatment of children continues to occur frequently: statistics are often misleading as cases of paedophile abuse or abuse within the family are often never reported. The high number of silent cases can be added to all those unsolved cases, of missing children (about 30,000 per year) and the increasing phenomenon of unaccompanied foreign children, of whom we have little or no information.
- However, the data available to us confirms that violence towards minors is constantly increasing. The figures, therefore, seem to confirm a warning against paedophilia. Two minors a day are subjected in Italy to sexual abuse, while reports to the police of violence towards minors have shown a huge increase: there were 305 reports in 1996, 470 in 1997, 534 in 1998, 586 in 1999, with an increase of over 90% in four years. Each year, there are 1,000 court cases relating to abused or maltreated children (35% of whom are under three years of age). Although more than 80% of sexual and physical abuse occurs within the family or is carried out by people who know their victims, many cases are perpetrated by strangers. (Source: Eurispes)
PAEDOPHILE RELATED CRIMES AND SEX TOURISM
- The business of paedophilia treats its victims as slaves. The business of paedophilia is a reality, as is the abuse carried out and the pain it leaves behind. It is based on different factors and well-defined parties. It reveals acts of exchange, negotiation, and sales, with children or adolescents as the "goods". The steps within which the business moves are shocking.
- The phenomenon has taken on worrying proportions and involves different areas of the world: it is mainly based in South East Asia. Trade centres on Thailand with its 2 million prostitutes, 800,000 of whom are children, with 40,000 to 200,000 in The Philippines and from 70,000 to 100.000 in Japan; other affected countries include Pakistan, Nepal, Cambodia and Vietnam. South America is also affected: more than 2 million children in Brazil are destined for sex tourism and more than 25,000 will meet the same fate in The Dominican Republic. In Russia the number of children is 60,000, but this increases greatly if one considers the other countries of the former Soviet Union.
- And then we must consider the rich and developed western world, our world, with our laws, which demands this form of tourism. It is from here, from our civilised world, that sex tourists depart. Westerners are the ones who demand and supply the paedophile network and who pay to have sex with children.
CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
- Child pornography is defined as any representation, with all means, of a child in explicit sexual poses, whether real or simulated or any representation of a child's sexual organs for mainly sexual purposes.
- Child pornography exists since the beginning of photography, therefore it was already a reality before Internet.
- It is difficult to establish if the Internet has contributed to an increase in the production of child pornographic photos and videos, or simply created a new channel to circulate these images. Internet has definitely contributed to making it easier and simpler to diffuse these types of images.
- On-line child pornography is characterised
by 5 different aspects:
- Sexual abuse of minors in all its forms;
- Photographic documentation, videos or audio recordings of abuse and violence;
- The diffusion of images in an vast computer network;
- Access to images of abuse by many people;
- The possibility to download images.
- Sexual exploitation is premeditated for personal gain. In fact, most of the time the "consumer" is different from the "producer" of images and sites containing child pornography. The child pornography market produces all sorts of products.
- 90% of the small children raped are white, 80% are European and in seven of ten cases the victim is female. The products are aimed at an admiring audience, encouraged by the efficiency of Internet, with circa 70,000 similar sites identified. More than half of these are created in the United States, 20% in Japan and 13% in Europe.
- Child pornography is a crime and is classed as sexual exploitation of minors for commercial purposes and, in general, sexual abuse committed against minors.
- According to Postal Police data from 1998, the year in which the new law against the sexual exploitation of minors (Law 269/98) was enforced, there were 40,000 websites and 729 on-line paedophiles reported to the police. There were 73 arrests, 721 searches and 4081 notifications made to foreign police up to March 2002. Internet results as the most used channel for those who offer or receive child pornographic material. Of circa 25 million American minors who navigate Internet on a daily basis, 1 in 4 has visited a pornographic site at least once, while 1 in 5 has received proposals of sex. The value of the on-line paedophile market is 5 billion dollars; a photo of children in violent scenes can cost between 30 and 100 dollars. The paedophile sites reported to police worldwide between 1996 and 2000 were circa 29,000, with 12 million images diffused on the Internet.
- In Italy, according to the Public Prosecutors Office in Rome, there were circa 89,000 photos of young people discovered while having sex with the person under arrest, 128 videos and 5,000 encrypted files, all showing child victims for release onto the paedophile market.
SEXUAL ABUSE WITHIN THE FAMILY
- The overwhelming majority of sexual abuse cases against minors (70-90% of cases) take place within the family and mainly concern parent-child relations.
- Both the data relating to reported cases and those relevant to criminal proceedings taken against abusers reinforce this evidence, which is otherwise confirmed by making comparisons with the situations in other countries, such as the U.S.A. or France.
- We looked at indexes and comparative documentation from American studies as there is a lack of such research in Italy. It is estimated that in Italy the number of minors who have been sexually assaulted (raped or molested) is between 10,500 and 21,000 per year.
- Therefore, two of every thousand Italian children are sexually abused each year.
- Furthermore, a more detailed analysis of abuse within the family, taking into consideration a qualitative analysis of the cases and reports to police, shows how sexual abuse occurs within families who no particular distinctive traits, in terms of social-economic class or geographic location. Independent of income, qualifications, parents' professions or the city or region of residence, violence and abuse within families is a transversal phenomenon, the reasons for which should be found within the balance of couple/family life and their system of relating to one another, which often results as uncertain and problematic.
INTERNET AND NEW TECHNOLGOGIES
- Over 13 million Italians navigate Internet and more than one million of these people are children between 2 and 13 years of age and at least twice this amount live in a house with an Internet connection.
- The data relating to the possession of a mobile phone among young people show that almost all of them have a mobile (over 90%) and that access to mobile multimedia contents is on the increase.
- These figures are useful to understand the vast amount of children on-line, who also form an important share of the expanding market.
- New technologies provide stimuli and information that can be defined as in continuous flow. When this flow is not intercepted byfilters (critical filters, in particular) it can have undesired, devastating effects, particularly for children, who are not always able to criticise information. These filters would help them not to fall victim to the flow indiscriminately.
- Chat, web cam, e-mail and many other one-to-one or one-to many interaction systems provide great advantages, such as immediate feedback or the speed at which information is exchanged, however the effects of which can become terribly evasive for children.
WHAT ARE THE RISKS?
- What risks are there for a ten year old child on the net? And what risks derive from the unaware, uncritical use of a mobile phone?
- The risks of molestation and enticement via a technological means for sexual abuse purposes and/or child pornography are a reality.
- In research conducted among 1,500 children:
- 20% said they chat regularly,
- 21% use their own name with other users [of chat].
- 53% were involved in conversations of a sexual nature. And these children were between 8 and 11 years of age. They talk about cyberspace flirting.
- 16% said they had face to face meetings with other users. These children chat regularly on the net. Many of them were unaccompanied to meetings agreed on the web. (Source: Save the Children, May 2004)
- Adults searching the Internet for minors can use "basic" methods, looking among the personal profiles left in communities by minors. These records often indicate a name and surname, age, residency, physical characteristics and hobbies and other information, such as an e-mail address, which is useful for an adult who is interested in selecting a victim.
- They can also use more sophisticated techniques to get close to a victim, such as direct attempts via chat, operated by "expert" adults, who frequent communication sites dedicated to children.
- Furthermore, an adult who intends having sexual relations with minors can count of Internet support, composed of useful advice, precious information on how to behave, the past experiences of others, forming an updated guideto useful places, methods and behaviour to achieve one's objective. There are also situations on the Internet where these adults meet and exchange opinions and useful information relating to how to groom a child, to avoid making errors that could compromise the relationship formed.These virtual relationshipsin chat rooms between adults and children can last for a long time (even months), before reaching the sexual molestation or abuse stage.
INFORMATION AND AWARENESS
- A home PC, if used by a child, must be located in an area which is accessible to all family members.
- Correctly informing the child of the negative aspects of the web and unpleasant meetings that are possible on Internet, can be a very efficient solution.
- Parents, instructors and teachers must intervene, moving attention away from the passive relationship between a medium-child to the awareness of the tool, by concentrating on the aspects relating to the growth of the minor, his or her cognitive, behavioural and emotional processes and by evaluating individual experience.
- Parents should also become aware of the opportunities and risks of the means in question and become informed interlocutors (as much as possible) and help children by assisting them in Internet navigation.
- Some advice for children to aid "safe navigation":
- Protect your personal data, your address, that of your school, etc. and do not give out this information. Privacy is a value and a right.
- Never send a personal photograph to anyone you don't know and always remember that these images can be forwarded to others and remain online for a long time.
- Never accept or make appointments. There could be anyone on the other end: an adolescent could be an adult, a female could be a male or vice versa. Always discuss these issues with your parents, teachers, brothers or sisters or older friends.
- Always consult an adult if you feel you met someone strange on-line or a particular experience made you uncomfortable.
- Advice for parents:
- Teach your children the value of privacy and never to disclose their data via a computer or mobile phone;
- Help your children to navigate Internet;
- Never put a PC in your child's bedroom;
- Develop technical skills;
- Never leave a child alone in front of a PC. It is not a television;
- Identify safe sites and chatrooms where children can freely communicate;
- Explain to children that thanks to Internet we can discover and learn many things, but there is the risk of having a bad experience online.
THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES FOR VICTIMS
- Sexual abuse is a confusing attack which destabilised a minor's personality and his or her development (which is different from physical abuse where it is impossible to confuse the abuse with a show of affection, with sexual abuse a child often cannot distinguish between the two and this causes confusion and instability);
- The intensity and quality of the damaging results derive
from a balance between the characteristics
of the event:
- precociousness
- frequency
- duration
- seriousness of the sexual acts
- relationship with the abuser
- and protection factors:
- individual resources available to a victim
- family resources
- intervention in psycho-social, health and judicial environments.
- The psychological consequences of the violence determines the method in which the victim sees him/herself and others, as well as his or her expectations from interactions with individuals and the way in which he of she will deal with life.
- Child abuse can present symptoms of a psychological and behavioural nature, but this is not always the case. It is however useful to recognise these symptoms (laziness, lack of motivation, chronic tiredness, poor performance in school, attention disorders) which are not only typical of sexual abuse, but can also distinguish other forms of hardship. In this respect, it is necessary to proceed with great care: only experience and a capacity to understand the main symptoms, the environmental context, evidence, testimonies and information gathered would enable correct diagnosis.
- A person's sexual and psychological integrity mainly develops through the respect others show for his or her development and body during childhood.
- With regard to the consequences resulting over time of any sexual abuse suffered at an early age, many people remain psychically traumatised or become abnormally sexually active or may even risk turning into abusers. Obviously, this is not a general rule, especially regarding the abused-abuser cycle. Even after serious abuse, many people overcome the trauma: this is easier if the victim talks about the abuse and if they are listened to and helped. If not, they take on a responsibility which is too great for them.
- This is why it is fundamental that parents, teachers and anyone who works with children are capable of listening to them and understanding the signs of hardship when they show. In some cases, an abused child can become an adult with numerous problems and may also suffer from psychiatric disorders.
- Prompt intervention during child abuse or maltreatment, other than being recommended for all child abuse victims, also offers a safe preventive value for the development of disorders in adult life: statistics show that 50% of young drug addicts and 30-40% of patients in psychiatric hospitals are untreated victims of sexual abuse; we can deduce from these statistics how all forms of child abuse can lead to disorders in adult life. In this case, prevention is a social duty and responsibility.
ETHICS AND RESPONSIBILITY
- Today, attention to child hardship is greater than in the past. Episodes of hardship and child abuse are still too many, but social conscience has developed a sense of disgust and condemnation towards it.
- Despite the etymological origin of the term paedophilia, which expresses a love of children, the meaning of the world is now restricted to the erotic attraction and molestation of minors. In this respect, some authors discuss the term paedotrophy, or rather, "rearing children".
- Unfortunately, even with reports to the police and measures implemented by various institutions and civil society, there is, even in Italy, a paedophile counterculture movement which claims the right to express the sexuality of paedophiles and values of child sexuality in all its forms, denouncing ostracism and demonisation which accompany these acts.
- Yet, from a sociological point of view, we can say that all child sex abuse sanctions for two or three decades have totally and unconditionally condemned any form of paedophilia as immoral. These sanctions are both an ethical and social asset as they leave no space for abuse disguised as acceptable and respectable ambiguity, with no room for manoeuvre or justification for those who threaten the psychological health of a child.
PREVENTION
- Ensuring the well-being of a minor is a duty as stated in article 24 of the Rights of the Child - Charter of Fundamental Rights that defines a child's right to "enjoy the highest level of physical and mental health possible and the use of rehabilitative medical care".
- Prevention not only results from the capacity to identify forms of psychological abuse, but also from the capacity to listen to the needs of a child. A child is "healthy" if he or she lives in harmonious, reassuring, encouraging and genuine surroundings.
- Prevention of child hardship cannot be expected of the family, a school or the State alone. Those who work to defend the psychological well-being of children must work alongside teachers, families, social-health workers and those who work towards arresting international paedophiles.
- Child hardship grows from many evils and paedophilia and paedophile related crimes implicate many people and society. We can plan for appropriate and effective prevention only with serious, constant and efficient teamwork.
INFORMATION AND SENSITISATION
- Appropriate prevention measures must include an information campaign through publications, school, family guidance centres and the mass media to make parents and teachers aware of the reality in which children live today, of the physical and psychological risk children could be taking, the type of sensitisation, comprehension and reactions that children and adolescents can have in different contexts and situations.
- The sensitisation of each citizen regarding
such an increasing problem is essential to eliminate it at
the roots. In the U.S.A., primary prevention and sensitisation
programmes are very common, especially in schools, and set
some fundamental objectives:
- make a child aware of his or her body and the right to control access to it by others;
- teach children that there is "good", appropriate contact and "bad", inappropriate contact;
- increase awareness that it is illegal to share secrets that concern body contact and that it is possible to talk to others;
- identify a certain number of people who can provide support and love;
- recognise that we can trust in our feelings. For this reason, when a situation feels strange or uncomfortable, this is a sufficient sign to speak to someone;
- learn to say "no": having learned to identify a potentially dangerous situation, a child learns how to refuse a proposal and ask for help.
EDUCATION
- Adult preparation is very important: effective prevention of sexual abuse and violence towards minors is based on "teaching the teachers", which firstly means encouraging greater knowledge of oneself and overcoming incompetency and personal embarrassment. On the other hand, it is difficult to provide young people with correct, complete information on sexuality and possible abuse.
- The work of parents, teachers, instructors and associations provides strength and stability to a world vision "customised for children".
- To combat, prevent and limit paedophilia and paedophile related crimes, it is necessary to teach children the principles of prevention and safety, without false moralism, using a language style which is appropriate to that age group and by respecting their gradual development.
- The worrying increase of paedophile related crimes on the Internet, and beyond, requires intervention aimed at sensitising the police force and anyone who deals with this problem.
LA CARAMELLA BUONA
Italian Free Phone Number: 800.311.960
WHO WE ARE
- The National Paedophile Crime Prevention Association, LA CARAMELLA BUONA, is a non-profit organisation (Onlus), and registered as no. 4670/14485 on 08/09/1997 in the Voluntary Service Register.
WHAT WE DO
- LA CARAMELLA BUONA operates both nationally and internationally to combat child abuse, by using a Qualified and Constant Training tool. It is fundamental to offer tools and information to adults who have the task of "listening" to children: this is the only way to deal with a serious conversation on abuse (not only physical) prevention.
- Courses, conferences, seminars, meetings in schools and publications for children: aid the recognition of possible hardship in the lives of children, create a synergy to protect potential victims and carry out government and institution lobbying.
- The team of experts within the organisation is composed of doctors, psychologists, criminologists, lawyers, judges, investigators, police officers and instructors: they are available free of charge for consultations, opinions and also to listen and assess each case.
- A specific sector deals with international adoption, with collaboration from different Eastern European and South American countries. Families are followed step by step in all the delicate stages of adoption.
- The Association forms the reference point for ministerial consultative organisations (Internet&Minori Self-Regulatory Code, Ministry of Communications, Ministry of Justice) and the RAI Social Action Department. Thanks to the work carried out over the last few years, we have obtained the patronage of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY/ WEBOGRAPHY
- D. HOWITT, Paedophiles and Sexual Offenses Against Children, published by Centro Scientifico Editore, Turin 2000
- A. OLIVERIO FERRARIS, B. GRAZIOSI, Pedofilia, published by Laterza, Bari 2004
- The international conference organised by SAVE THE CHILDREN ITALY, Rome, 11th May 2004: Child pornography: who are the victims and what are the risks on Internet? Stop-it 2004, second report.
- www.aquiloneblu.org
- www.caramellabuona.org
- www.eurispes.com
- www.interno.it
- www.parlamento.it
- www.pedofilia.it
- www.pib.comune.verona.it
- www.psycomedia.it
- www.sosinfanzia.org