Following the 21-day lockdown across the country in wake of coronavirus outbreak, there has been alarming rise in demand for child pornography material, said India Child Protection Fund (ICPF) on Monday. The report has been submitted to the Women & Child Development ministry for further action.
According to Nivedita Ahuja, the spokesperson, ICPF, since the lockdown, online data monitoring websites are showing an increase in demand for searches like ‘child porn’, ‘sexy child’ and ‘teen sex videos’.
“This is a blatant violation of the directions of the Supreme Court, and a violation of national policy. Pornographic websites are playing hide-and-seek with Indian law and judiciary by simply changing their website URLs. The Government of India must urgently crackdown on child pornography and also initiate a global dialogue for an international convention against child sexual abuse material,” she said.
ICPF has released a report titled ‘Child Sexual Abuse Material in India’, a research of child pornography demand in 100 cities in India like New Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar and Indore.
As per report, the overall demand for child pornography was an average of 5 million per month in 100 cities on the public web during December 2019, which has now spiked. The report reveals up to 200 per cent increase in demand for violent content which shows children “choking”, “bleeding” and “tortured”.
“This suggests that “Indian men are not ‘satisfied’ with generic child pornography and demand violent and exploitative content,” said the spokesperson.
“Metro cities like New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai, besides many Tier II and capital cities, which are seeing a sharp increase in Coronavirus cases, have been red-flagged by the December study as hotspots for child pornography. The organisation has implored authorities to further step up online vigil in these cities for potential exploiters,” said the spokesperson.
ICPF has also warned that the alarming rise indicates millions of paedophiles, child rapists and child pornography addicts have migrated online, making the internet extremely unsafe for children. “Without stringent action, this could result in a drastic rise in sexual crimes against children,” the spokesperson further added. When asked about increased traffic about child pornography, a senior Delhi Police official said that they haven't reviewed the report yet. Delhi Police cyber cell keeps an eye on such predators as they pose risk to children, the official added.