Cindy Kiro: Porn children are real, and now so are the sentences

COMMENT

Many people caught in possession of child pornography appear to believe it is a victimless crime.

People convicted of possessing images frequently have thousands of files on their computers. Some offenders deny they are paedophiles, and say they viewed the images for entertainment.

In a recent case, a Tauranga man pleaded guilty to having more than 150 pictures and computer images of children being sexually abused.

It is highly likely this young man thought he was just downloading pornography, and he may not have given much thought to the children involved in the creation of the images.

But child-pornography images frequently involve children as young as 5 engaged in sex with adults, as well as other acts that would horrify and upset most people.

What offenders fail to realise is that the children are real. These children are victims of intolerable sexual abuse.

If a man in our community were caught engaging in these acts with a child, society would want the courts to lock him up and throw away the key.

Society may feel repugnance when people appear in court charged with possessing child pornography, but the court setting does not give a voice to the victim in this offending.

Child pornography coming from the Third World or a distant European country may also distance the offending in some people's minds.

People who are looking at these images out of curiosity or for "entertainment" should realise their actions are creating a market, which involves the suffering of small children.

It would also be surprising if child pornography is not being produced in New Zealand.

Trading in child pornography has exploded as offenders explore all the possibilities of the internet.

Data from Manchester, provided by the Department of Internal Affairs, shows that in 1995 police seized 12 child pornographic images.

Four years later 41,000 child-porn images were seized. Almost all of them came from the internet.

Internal Affairs has worked hard to bring about prosecutions and its staff say they are combating skyrocketing levels of abuse.

But the courts can do little more than give offenders a slap across the wrist.

The current maximum penalties are one year's jail for producing, copying or trading child pornography, and a $2000 fine for possessing child pornography.

In one recent case, an Auckland man was caught trading, advertising and collecting images that included the rape of 3-year-olds, toddlers being tortured, and adults inflicting sexual acts on babies. This offending did not result in a prison term.

Last year an offender was ordered to do 400 hours' community work, and early this year the Kaikohe District Court fined a man $9000 plus costs for trading and collecting child sex abuse images and electronic movies.

These sentences do little to send a message to offenders that society will not tolerate their actions.

In the recent Tauranga case, the man's defence lawyer argued his client's offending was at the lower end of the scale because the legal penalty for his offending was a fine rather than a prison sentence.

All this is about to change. Legislation, in the form of the Films, Videos and Publications Bill, has had its first reading in Parliament.

Under this legislation, people producing, trading or distributing child pornography will face up to 10 years in jail. It also extends the offences of trading and distribution to cover all forms of distribution, whether or not commercial gain is involved.

There will also be a new offence of possession with knowledge, to apply where a person has reasonable cause to believe the publication is objectionable.

At the office of the Children's Commission, we say bring it on.

This legislation is welcomed by my office, which has a clear mandate to help protect children from harm and abuse. Giving courts the power to hand down weighty jail sentences may deter significant numbers of casual viewers of child pornography.

My office is not interested in debates about censorship; we are concerned about protecting children from what is essentially an extreme form of violence.

Surely that is a basic human right, whether you are a child living in New Zealand or any other part of the world.

* Dr Cindy Kiro is the Children's Commissioner.