Child Pornography: Sexploitation On The World Wide Web

In 2004, a UNICEF document mentioned an account of 17 children who were sexually exploited by three foreign nationals in Manila, Philippines. The document revealed that in addition to sexually abusing the innocent children, the accused foreign nationals also took a video footage of these children undressing in sexually suggestive poses. In yet another incident in 2009, the Bangkok Post published a chilling news feature mentioning the sale of child porn DVD’s & VCD’s on the streets of one of Bangkok’s busiest roads. These VCD’s that were sold out in the public like cupcakes and candies depicted children from countries like Burma, The Philippines, Thailand, and Europe in sexual acts. What remains morally lethal is the fact that these children were as young as seven and that their impeccability was bartered for obscenity and immorality in order to aid a sexually deviant behavior. With the advent and subsequent boost of the internet, child pornography today has become one of the fastest growing industries for commercial sexual exploitation. 

It is said that the World Wide Web has brought more zing to a pedophile’s sexual gratification and has added to a pimp’s plum, but contemptible business. Jerry Ropelato, a recognized Internet safety expert and the CEO of TopTen Reviews Incorporation says that every second $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography. Also, every second about 28,258 internet users are viewing pornography and that every 39 minutes a new pornographic video is being developed in the United States. Jerry further explains that pornography industry has larger revenues than IT giants, such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Apple, & Netflix. However, internet is not the only medium of such filthy entertainment though it is the most accessible means today.

In February of 2011, The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) & the Department of Justice (DOJ) seized ten pornographic websites in San Diego, California. These websites were mainly engaged in advertisement and distribution of child pornography. As recent as 3rd of August, 2011, there has been bombarding news of criminal charges against 72 people involved in child pornography network. Out of these 72 accused people, 52 have been arrested in the U.S. and 13 other countries like Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Germany, Hungary, Kenya, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Qatar, Serbia, Sweden, and Switzerland. This dismaying news that disclosed about the accused members also charged them of having a global community of pedophiles who were devoted to unkempt means of child victimization and sexual abuse of children twelve and under, including some children who were just babies. 

Sexploitation of children is the most heinous crime ever that deprives children of their human rights and results in a long term psychological trauma. These children are abused and are subject to repeated rapes, severe beatings and sometimes even forced to drug addiction. Most child sexual abuse victims especially the ones lured into child prostitution or pornography undergo coerced behavioral transformations and are forced to overlook their actual identities. Some of the victims are also duped into juvenile delinquencies. In addition, most child sexual abuse victims show symptoms of mental and emotional health problems, such as nervousness or aggressive behavior towards adults, chronic depression, low self-esteem, or multiple personalities. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the most common consequence besides nightmares or flashbacks. Moreover, some child sexual abuse victims become perpetrators or prostitutes as adults and find it difficult to relate with others except on sexual terms. Community re-entry is also a huge problem in many child sexual abuse survivors as their past appears like a haunted dream that follows them for long. Some survivors are also prone to higher recidivism rates. 

Conscious parenting is a major deterrent to any kind of victimization or psychological damage during early childhood years, including pubescent and prepubescent periods. Being involved as much as possible with our child’s development early on is critical as it helps maintain positive parent-child communication. Restricting internet accessibility is yet another way to prevent unwanted exposure to sexually explicit material besides falling prey to the gambit of pedophiles on the worldwide web. Trust is one other major factor of sexploitation of children. Abusers may also be people among family or friends that appear trustworthy, but their familiarity and presence may actually be dangerous. Such people may catch young innocent children unaware and in absence of parent(s) and entrap little children into their obscene pleasure and uncouth desires. 

Poverty is another cause for child pornography and sexploitation. Many poor or economically deprived parents knowingly sell their children into such business to earn livelihood. Once lured into child pornography, prostitution is the next logical step for most child sexual abuse victims. When these children are caught by law enforcement institutions, they are mostly held and treated as criminals instead of victims. Child pornography is an international crime that has spread like a deadly virus across continents. The business of pornography is an organized crime divided into numerous unidentified rings. Stricter stipulations thus are required at national and international law enforcement levels. Despite international cooperation to combat child pornography, only miniscule victims are located each year by law enforcement agencies. Hacking someone’s emotions or stealing their innocent lives is a mortifying sin that should require a punishment that is more severe than just life imprisonment and/or a fine of few thousand dollars.

Copyright (c) 2011 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot
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A Blessed Acknowledgement

My toddler boy’s ethereal psyche as my chariot of change each day pulls me inward to spiritual spunk. Listening to his innocent and enigmatic expressions often seems like divine recital. Such platonic relationship between a mother and her child is a route to bliss and benign emotions. My first born, whose plush gazes and fervent heart that has uniform feelings for birds, animals and all living beings, is my pioneer retreat to a conscious state. His playful and magical enchantments is realization that children as god’s cherubs are the hymns of nature. Their eternal kindle illuminates our life with love, hope, care and courage.

At a nascent age children have the capacity to sense parent’s changing colors. They are the midget stars of a celestial empire. They show us that enthusiasm and excitement are unique ways to subsist. Nurturing a child is like rearing an angel. Their magnificent innocence instills that surrendering to god is a mode of attuning to self. With their wish lists to celebrate life our children signify the ‘power of now’ as a distinctive hallmark of living mindfully. Their glee as the adornment of our joy and a veil for sorrow helps us steer through transitions in life. As our significant couplers they are a mirror to our solemn state. They are the best cohorts one can have. With their mesmerizing ways they help expound on the fact that God resides in all, irrespective of abilities. As parents honoring these angelic protégés is respecting righteousness to commune with god. 

Our children’s serenity has an invisible power to incapacitate any negativity or prejudice that could impair the aura of our home and the peace in familial relationships. As parents fostering devotion and karma through the principles of good and bad actions, early on, in our children can make their lives more meaningful as they grow older and independent. We parents are a child’s harbinger to this world. Through our spiritual chalk talk we can share chaste lessons that God is omnipresent and one. Among the poor, he is a destitute; among the rich he is opulent. Such teachings help imbibe transparency in faith and equal respect for all religion. Giving a boon to children’s apostolic self also advances their spontaneity and theological desires later in life. 

As parents, especially a mother who is a child’s first guide, such discourses with our children not only incite them to a new way of life but also awaken us to a new state of mind. Such precepts for our children become conscious alerts for us in turn. Charting a child’s life with honesty, truth and wisdom hence becomes a mother’s poise. Any deterrence of self from such tranquility and serenity that we want to blossom in our children hinders the opportunity to set ourselves as model of transcendental values and religious beliefs. Recognizing this altruism in a parent-child relationship is an inspiration to learn from a child’s immaculateness and clear conscience. As parents internalizing a child’s superego through these moral principles helps them to be positive change agents in community and society. Such incorporeal narrations between us and our children enable us to control our own ego and maintain a balance between our material and spiritual self. As revered Osho once said, “The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The women existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.” Thanks indeed to my son who made me one.  

Copyright (c) 2010 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot

Picture Courtesy: Barkha Dhar

Honor Your Children

For parents who feel that children need control forever, can be manipulated to suit personal purpose or advantage and should be treated with less stature in the relationship, indeed need to revisit their style. Today parenting is more than rearing children or providing to their desires. It’s not about commanding as in a military unit but about understanding and relating to children at a transparent level. Such unequivocal dialogue between parent and child is a model of communication, relationship and behavior that represents parenting. Over the years this facet of human development has transformed from directive to participative style, wherein a child has a privilege to fair expression and concurrence and the parent has an unbiased approach and acceptance of a child’s such right. To me personally, parenting appears to be a role reverse that helps me relate to my child and lets me honor his thoughts and emotions, as I would want him to respect mine. 

A parent-child relationship sometimes also appears to be like a two way traffic sign on a street that has two arrows of equal sizes, side by side to each other, one pointing up, and the other pointing down indicating incoming and outgoing traffic in order to minimize or prevent chaos. But If the same street has these two traffic arrows unequal in size with one arrow pointing upwards larger than the other pointing downwards, it means outgoing traffic has priority over incoming traffic, something usually found when the road narrows at a particular end. This civic sense could serve as an augury in parenting. As an interchange of ideas and opinions and a junction of emotions, parenting is like the traffic arrows that signals directions in the relationship. Any wide or narrow frame of mind can either augment or taper this relationship leading to a never ending gap between a parent and his child.   

   

With times changing fast, children today are far smarter and perceptive of their parent’s style. On the other hand parents too seem to be more aware of their tact of dealing with their children indicating a paradigm shift from conventional authority structure to new age holistic balancing of roles with concepts of accommodating and comforting the child. The idea of parenting in the 21st century is not about creating a family but comprehending the changes that a child goes through in his lifespan from infancy to adolescence and later as an adult. Most importantly, parenting is an aim to let this change penetrate through the child in a way that doesn’t define parenting as stressful or even a tradeoff wherein the parent barters a child’s love and preferences for personal temperament.  

Mother Nature being the universal parent has an exquisite lesson to offer. Her tiny creatures like the sparrow bird incubates eggs patiently, feeds her young ones initially and grooms her children ultimately to see them fly independently in search of food and nest. This instance shows the thrust of autonomy on the offspring that boosts his self-sufficiency, something which we humans may or may not realize as elemental in the journey of parenting. Today successful parenting is as important as advancing in professional goals or accomplishing life’s mission. It’s about mentoring a child with expertise and wisdom rather than managing his life. It’s not just about setting disciplinary standards alone but ensuring self-appraisal before we assume a critique’s role in the child’s life. On realizing and implementing such change in us, as parents, the process or functionality of parenting becomes transformational and does not remain just transactional. It becomes far more yielding, leading to renewal of relationships rather than stagnation of thoughts in kinship. 

In order for parenting to be more rewarding, aligning ourselves to the following mode of care giving can be helpful. The choice to pursue such means though can be personal.

• If the child is an infant give him all the love you can while observing physical changes, eye movements, sensory agility to gauze his interests to capitalize on these as he or she grows older. 
• When the child is a preschooler encourage him to ask questions, reach out to people, and try new things even if it requires bearing his tantrums. If he cries, hear him out, it’s all the more reason to give him an advertent opportunity to hear himself. 
• In his teens nothing could be more beneficial than befriending him to open candid channels of communication, emotional support, advice and introduction to the gruesome facts of life. Here is the point where you are half way through favorable and happy parenting. 
• As an adult, he is no more a child. He would always be your little darling; it’s just that he won’t be that little sparrow anymore. It may sound as a bitter truth but the sooner we accept this fact, the better results we have. Also, this stage is paramount in the child’s life as this is when he outgrows from his parental cocoon to experience new relationships. The best thing to do as a parent would be not to judge but to gladly accept. 
• Having almost same rules for all your children (two, three or however many) ensures good sibling relations and mutual respect. Giving more freedom to one over the other in the long run can be hurtful or harmful for the siblings as it could be for the family as a unit. 
• When the child enters marital state and the family prepares to stretch out their nest, giving equal love and respect to your daughter-in-law and son-in-law, treating them as you would treat your children, is the first successful attempt at nesting into an extended family. On such welcoming effort, don’t be surprised if ‘love begets love’ and your daughter-in-law or son- in -law regard and respect you as their own parents. 
• Last but not the least, setting dual standards can bring in disharmony, which none of us want. So try to avoid that. Also appreciating the fact that every relationship is a pattern of human behavior may be helpful, what befits one situation or style may not befit other. Remember that parenting is also a state of mind so try and change if you want to make the most out of it. 

On following such precepts parenting wouldn’t have to be a stage of depression or a situation of resistance to change but a gift from one generation to another to nurture life’s invaluable traditions. As Sloan Wilson once said, “The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles.  A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard. As parents of a preschooler, honoring this lesson is the first task that my husband and I have decided to solemnize. 

Copyright (c) 2009 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot
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