Japan lacks teeth against online child porn
A recent crackdown on Internet-based child pornography by the Saitama prefectural police underlined the extent to which file-swapping software allows such material to proliferate beyond national borders.
However, current domestic laws are not capable of sufficiently clamping down on this kind of illegal online images, hampering police investigations .
Japan has been criticized by other countries as being a major exporter of child porn, and the government has been urged to establish relevant regulations and strengthen investigative powers.
The probe by the Saitama prefectural police was prompted by information from Brazilian authorities claiming child porn images had been transmitted from 20 locations in Japan.
The police conducted a six-month inquiry and arrested three men between Nov. 5 and Wednesday on suspicion of possessing illegal images with the aim of supplying them to others in violation of a law prohibiting child prostitution and child pornography.
The third meeting of an international conference against the sexual exploitation of minors, which aims to crack down on child porn on the Internet, will start on Nov. 25 in Rio de Janeiro, with participants from about 130 countries attending.
Currently, an international investigation covering more than 70 countries, including Japan, is being conducted by Interpol.
Since the previous conference, held in Yokohama in 2001, Japan has been labeled as a hotbed for the dissemination of child porn images.
An estimate by an international nongovernmental organization said Japan has the third-largest number of child porn Web sites following the United States and Russia. The NGO believes Japan is dragging its feet with regard to improving domestic laws.
Seven years after the Yokohama meeting, which adopted a declaration stating that worldwide measures should be taken to combat the online problem, the coming Rio de Janeiro summit will discuss strategies for international cooperation.
Meanwhile, however, child porn continues to proliferate widely.
The Japan Committee for UNICEF recently received a letter from a female university student who said she was sexually abused and photographed when she was a child.
Her letter said: “I’ve attempted suicide on numerous occasions. I’ve searched online as if possessed, fearing that images of me are scattered across the Net.”
The letter continued: “As long as the photos exist, I’ll never be able to marry. I can’t forget my past as long as child porn is easily obtainable in Japan. I feel as if my life’s already over.”
Hiromasa Nakai, chief spokesman of the Japan Committee for UNICEF, said: “Once such images are leaked onto the Internet, the chance of victims’ mental wounds ever healing disappears. Victims continue to worry that somebody might be looking at graphic images of them.”
The arrested men told the investigators they had obtained the child porn data using file-swapping software.
The computer files confiscated by the police included a copy of an obscene movie featuring a high school girl that was confiscated during another investigation several years ago, as well as illicit images of a girl taken 10 years ago.
Some of the online files attracted more than 10,000 hits per day.
“Even after the girls have grown up, such images remain on the Net and can proliferate. File-swapping software has accelerated this situation,” a senior official of the prefectural police said.
The file-swapping software used in the latest incident is called eMule, which allows Internet users to share data files containing graphics and other data. The software allows even long movies to be quickly transmitted.
The prefectural police conducted cyber-patrols using personal computers installed with eMule, leading to official investigations in September and October.
However, about half the PCs confiscated by police had no child porn data in folders set up to contain shared files, with the files having been previously deleted.
Police investigations were hampered when rumors circulated on Internet bulletin boards saying eMule users were being targeted by the authorities.
The police cannot prosecute individuals for possessing child porn. However, if such data are found inside a file set up to be shared with others, police can question the person on suspicion of intending to provide the data to others.
One police investigator said: “It’s irrational that we can’t arrest a person if child porn isn’t stored in a shared file. I heard that in Western countries, there was a case where hundreds [of people] were arrested just for possessing such images.”
Lawyer Keiji Goto, an expert on laws relating to child porn, said, “The [latest] incident sheds new light on the fact that file-swapping software is making things worse. The government should consider introducing regulations to deal with those who obtain such images as soon as possible.”
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Japan lags behind in regulation
Among the Group of Eight nations, only Japan and Russia do not have an outright ban on child porn.
The possession of child porn that is intended for private viewing, but not for sale or presentation, is not a punishable offense in this nation and Russia.
South Korea revised its relevant law last year, introducing fines for violators of up to 20 million won (about 1.4 million yen) for simple possession of child porn, such as photographs and motion pictures.
“Foreign countries are surprised to learn that simple possession has yet to be regulated in Japan,” a Foreign Ministry official said.
The ruling parties in June submitted a revision bill that would permit those found in possession of child porn to be punished.
Observers have noted that it can be difficult to establish what constitutes possession via the Internet. They note that with regard to transactions of child porn made over the Internet, possession could be said to have occurred if such images are transmitted to a person’s personal computer, which would mean that even recipients of unsolicited e-mail could be judged as possessors.
The ruling parties bill is therefore designed to target those who collect child porn.
The Democratic Party of Japan has come out against the ruling parties’ bill, saying it would lead to arbitrary investigation.
The major opposition party has instead announced a gist of revisions, including one aimed at punishing acquiring child porn for profit.
Detailed discussions were expected to be held during the current extraordinary Diet session, but debate on the revision bill has been delayed as the government has shifted its focus from a possible dissolution of the House of Representatives for a snap general election to measures to tackle the global economic crisis.
“[It would be] difficult to pass the revision bill through the current Diet session because the focus of the current Diet session is on pump-priming measures,” said Ikuzo Sakurai, director of the LDP’s Judicial Affairs Division.
Another issue to be tackled is how to eliminate child porn from the Net as it is abundant. Attention has been focused on blocking sites that show such images, a move that would require the cooperation of Internet service providers to ensure Net surfers were prevented from browsing child porn sites.
The United States and nine European countries introduced the blocking system as of the end of 2007.
In Sweden, if someone tries to access a child porn site, a warning appears that reads “Stop” and lists the punishments for possession of child porn.
“Blocking serves as a weapon for reducing child porn, which is rampant on the Net,” Masao Horibe, professor emeritus of Hitotsubashi University, said. “International cooperation is necessary to clamp down on child porn because such sites can be browsed via a server in an unregulated country.”
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Police to send papers on 3 men
SAITAMA–The Saitama prefectural police will send papers to prosecutors on three other suspects in connection with child pornography, sources said.
A senior police officer said the three men, aged 34, 31 and 18, come from Chiba and Ibaraki prefectures.
The three allegedly stored child porn movies on the eMule file-sharing system and provided the data to other Internet users who accessed the files.
The police identified the three suspects through cyber-patrol activities and raided their houses on suspicion they supplied data containing child porn to others, the officer said.
The officer added that the police had confiscated the men’s PCs, which were found to contain child porn movies on the hard disks. However, child porn images were not found in the eMule files.
The police suspect the three deleted the data because Internet bulletin boards had circulated a rumor that police were investigating eMule users, sources said.
source: yomiuri.co.jp
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