Child Abuse And Pornography: Effects And Laws

“The abuser’s desire to abuse is not created by the child, it is there before the child appears”. This great phrase was spoken by Carolyn Ainscough author of ‘Help for Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse.

Generally, the term ‘abuse’ is surrounded by intentional acts which result in physical, mental or emotional harm to the children and it is awful that children are abused mostly by their parents or the person who is legally responsible for his or her care and relatives or the people who know the child closely. Child abuse can take place at homes, schools, orphanages, residential care facilities, on the streets, in the workplace, in prison and places of detention, and it can be in any form such as injury, neglect or negligent treatment, blaming, forced sexual stimulation and activity, incest exploitation and sexual abuse. Child sexual abuse includes sexual assault in which an adult touches minor for purpose of sexual gratification like rape and sexual exploitation in which an adult victimizes a minor for advancement, sexual gratification, or profit such as prostituting a child, and creating or trafficking in child pornography.

Pornography is a picture, film, or writing that intentionally stimulates sexual provocation. Child abuse and pornography are two of the extremely terrible and disturbing social problems that our society is facing today. If this kind of child abuse was a disease, we would have telethon, rallies and other public events to raise money for the cure. Just as people didn’t talk openly about cancer in the 1960s and 1970s, we must get past our discomfort talking about child sexual abuse, and give it the attention it deserves and that is why the sad truth of today is that millions of children have unwanted or abusive sexual involvements. Unfortunately, these two problems are also amongst the most challenging. We accept as true, pornography to be sin in itself, but when an innocent child is brought into this dark, demeaning word of perverts and pedophiles, the immorality grows to a whole different extreme. Child pornography has been defined under the federal statute as a graphic representation of a minor engaged in sexually explicit misconduct. Each child involved in the production of an image is a sufferer of sexual abuse. While some child sexual abuse images portray children in great pain and the sexual abuse is self-evident, other images may portray children that appear self-satisfied. However, just because a child appears self-satisfied does not mean that sexual abuse did not occur. In most child pornography cases, the abuse is not a one-time event, but rather an ongoing victimization that passes over months or years. It is ordinary for producers of child pornography to prepare victims, or make a connection with a child and slowly sexualize the contact over time. The preparation process promotes a wrong sense of trust and authority over a child to break down a child´s refusal of sexual abuse. Therefore, even if a child appears self-satisfied in a specific image, it is prime to remember that the abuse may have started years before that image was created.

Moreover, the sufferer of child pornography suffers not just from the sexual abuse imposed upon them to produce child pornography, but also from intending that their images can be marketed and seen by others worldwide. Once an image is on the Internet, it is irreversible and can resume spreading forever. The indefinite record of a child´s sexual abuse can change his/her life forever. Many victims of child pornography suffer from feelings of incompetence, fear, embarrassment, and lack of control given that their images are obtainable for others to view in forever. Crimes associated with child pornography are unthinkable.

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It’s said that 53% of the children in India face some form of child sexual abuse. Now here a question also arises that why do adult fails to protect their child from these sexual involvements. Many adults wrongly assume a child would tell if they experienced traumatic sexual interaction. If the child doesn’t tell, they assume nothing happened. There are certain reasons which people overlook but when thought honestly these reasons can help a child to protect themself from these sexual involvements. Basically, in India, people don’t talk about these things openly and neither sex education is provided and because of this, children don’t know what is right and what is wrong. The problem of not giving sex education followed by generation gaps becomes a big issue, kids don’t open up with their parents and tell anything about what has happened to them and they start thinking that they are wrong that’s why this has happened to them or sometimes they feel shy thinking that what will their parents think or react after knowing this. Not only sex education but they should be taught how to protect themselves from this iniquity. One of the reasons why an adult fails to protect can be their job/work. Having a job or being jobless both can affect the child. If parents work, they can’t make time for their children, and even if the child wants to tell them something, they can’t express anything, as their parents are busy all the time. India has 30% of families which are Below Poverty Line (BPL) due to unemployment. Generally, what happens, due to lack of money and basic needs a person can become aggressive and due to which these people mostly take out all their aggression and anger by beating up their child. Some people are so worse that in the greed of money they push their children in these sexual involvements and thereafter photographs, videotapes, films and magazines of children in sexual poses and sexual act makes up the world of child pornography.

There are strict laws against child abuse and producing or obtaining child pornography. The Constitution of India carries several provisions for the protection of the children. It has authorized the legislature to make special laws to protect the rights of the children. Articles 14,15, 15(3), 19(1) (a), 21, 21(A), 23, 24, 39(e) 39(f) of the Constitution of India states certain laws for the protection, and well-being of all its people, including children. There are several acts and statutes dealing with the protection of children such as section 317, 366-A, 372, 373 of the Indian Penal Code. Acts such as The Juvenile Justice Act, 2000; The Immoral Traffic Act,1956; Child Labour Act, 1986 provides strict laws for children. One of the most important act is the Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences Act, 2012, it has been prepared to brace the legal provision for the protection of children from sexual abuse. This act delivers strict punishment to the convicted person, which has been classified as per the weight of the crime. It criminalizes acts of immorality including child pornography.

Hopefully, these provisions, acts, and statutes are serving as an influential deterrent, but nonetheless, the crime has not stopped. There are the victims who don’t even know that they are being victimized, who have no understanding of the crime, the violence is done to them. This is the worst-case scenario, as who fall among this category includes insane, mentally challenged, and the innocent child. We accept that abuse can be in different forms but the condition that concerned us the most is the condition of an innocent child being victimized by sexual abuse. Our concern is strongly influenced by us being an Indian. India, where the subject of child sexual abuse and involvements is still a repugnant taboo and as we have traditional and conservative community structure, we are not supposed to talk on this subject and consider upholding the honor by keeping such topics even if its observed, within us. We think child abuse and pornography are the most horrible social problems we are fronting, and realistically, it will probably never be completely disregarded, but society as a whole needs to realize the severity of these crimes and work together to get a handle on the problem like these.

Thus, it’s high time we pay concern to mitigate and eradicate this evil from our society.