The problem with govt assistance is that they are accomplices in protecting peadophilia because it is used as a special reward for corruption. Peadophilia is perfect for this use because it shows the providers to be above the law and the fear of being exposed is extremely high.

Therefore the govt will go to all lengths to protect the organised peadophilia groups.

See http://www.csapp.net/

jcl - thanks for your comments. I agree with them.

When I referred to the sharing of photo's I was thinking in terms of the kind of creeps taking pictures of children in public places where the child has no knowledge of the abuse, not photo's of physical abuse. The point I was trying to make was that the impact of some forms of abuse is potentially less to the child than that of others. The abuse is still wrong but I suspect that a kid photographed without their knowledge and who never becomes aware that their picture is being used by perverts suffers a lot less harm than someone repeatedly forced to perform sexual acts with an adult. All child abuse is wrong but we damage the discussion if we do not try and differentiate based on the likely harm done to the child.

I do get concerned that a consequence of the tone of discussion regarding child sexual abuse could be to increase the harm to the children. How do we as adults convey the message that child abusers are the lowest of the low without at the same time adding to the harm done to victims? I don't have easy answers to that. Somehow we need to find ways to have a public discussion about child abuse which does not leave the victims feeling more harmed and dirtied than they already are which does not go soft on the offenders.

>> R0bert - your comment about sharing pictures - these pictures were
>> taken by someone abusing the child in the picture, and the
>> humiliation of knowing there is a record of the abuse, that freaks
>> are still taking pleasure from these images long after the abuse
>> has stopped exacerbates teh damage originally done. Keeping in
>> mind, it is the emotion damage that is important, not really the
>> physical impact.

Robert,
I think that your comment that child sexual abusers are the “lowest of the low” can become quite dangerous if it is not properly qualified. The essential question becomes “what constitutes serious child sexual abuse”?

I am not saying that children should be sexual abused, but if there is too much hysteria about it then it can lead to a “lynching” type mentality, and many innocent people can get hurt.

Child sexual abuse only constitutes 10% of child abuse. But is child sexual abuse worse than starving a baby to near death, or torturing a child by repeatedly holding it underwater. I personally know two cases where mothers carried out these acts, and the children were eventually taken from the mothers and placed into foster care. Such cases rarely made the headlines, but it is cases such as these, that make up the 90% of child abuse cases that eventually involve the child protection agencies.

There is a great danger in the public overestimating or underestimating the different forms of child abuse, or concentrating almost totally on one form of child abuse to the exclusion of others.

Timkins,

I agree with your posts 100%.

It seems that child abuse has become 'indivisible'. By that I mean all child abuse is seen as equally abhorent no matter what happened.

The case with Scott Volkers is a good example. Scott Volkers was the national swim coach and had his life destroyed by a women who claimed he had rubbed her too high on the thigh during a massage. Eventually the charges were dropped. But even if he weren't, I really couldn't accept that an incident like that could destroy someones (the womens) life. Surely, if that case were true, someone could just say, look the guys a sleaze, don't worry about him. I don't understand why we've become so frail that anything to do with an allegation (remember it only has to be an allegation) destroys the persons life for ever. It seems we're giving victims a new type of stigma where they're supposed to be ruined forever because of an unwanted touch or rub.

Even in cases of serious sexual assualt, is it really in the victims best interest to say they will never get over it? Surely there's some hope.

There should be a no tolerance policy towards pedophila.Pedophiles pervert childrens lives and in turn beget more pedophiles.Children are entitled to their brief time of innocence.Currently the internet is spawning "Rock Spiders" by the dozen.The internet is responsible for a community of pedophiles that is seeking to to ligitimise their perversion of children's sexuality before they are emotionally able to cope.

Pedophiles know it's wrong because many of them suffered as children at the hands of an adult.They know of the trauma and have suffered the pain.There are no excuses.

Arjay,
While not condoning paedophilia in any way, child sexual abuse is not much different to the more common forms of child abuse, which can also lead to adults carrying out these same types of abuse on their own children as occurred to them. These other forms of child abuse constitute 90 % of child abuse, and can be just as destructive as child sexual abuse.

There appears to be a problem in that these other forms of child abuse rarely make the press or are heard about. I think this is because of laws that stop children from being identified. Because the immediate relatives of the child normally carry out forms of child abuse such as physical abuse, neglect etc, those relatives are not identified also. I know of two women who carried out quite extreme forms of child abuse. They almost killed their children, but they were never sentenced. They simply had the child taken from them, end of story.

Therefore the most common forms of child abuse are rarely heard about, and almost all press and discussion on child abuse tends to centre on child sexual abuse. Probably the caption of this article should be “Barbara Biggs argues that we need education to prevent general child abuse, not vigilantes.”