Sharp Rise In Demand For Child Pornography In India Ever Since Covid-19 Lockdown Imposed: Report

The ICPF has released a report titled 'Child Sexual Abuse Material in India', research of child pornography demand in 100 cities in India like New Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, and Indore.

There’s a 200 percent increase in the demand for violent child sexual abuse material. (Representative Image/ Getty)

New Delhi: India Child Protection Fund (ICPF) has reported a spike in child pornographic content ever since the lockdown was imposed. The report was based on online data monitoring websites for keywords like ‘child porn’, ‘teen sex videos’, ‘sexy child’ and others. Data from Pornhub, the world's largest pornography website in the world, also reveals that traffic from India has increased by 95 percent between March 24 and March 26 2020, as compared to their average traffic, pre-coronavirus, the ICPF claimed. The ICPF has released a report titled 'Child Sexual Abuse Material in India', research of child pornography demand in 100 cities in India like New Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, and Indore. 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. ICPF has warned that this indicates that millions of pedophiles, child rapists, and child pornography addicts have migrated online, making the internet extremely unsafe for children, and said without stringent action, this could result in a drastic rise in sexual crimes against children. The report reveals that there’s a 200 percent increase in the demand for violent child sexual abuse material. Materials that shows children bleeding, choking or being tortured have seen a sharp increase in demand. Pedophiles are now taking to the internet to ‘groom’ children, they befriend them, build an emotional connection to lure them into performing sexual activities through video and photos. Childline India Helpline had also reported more than 92,000 SOS calls asking for protection from abuse and violence in 11 days of the lockdown. The study was conducted last year between November and December, which showed that while a vast majority was interested in generic CSAM content, there was an increase in people looking for specific age groups, sexual action, and locations. The user base for this content was 90% male, 1% male and rest were nondescript of all age groups. To circumvent the Government of India’s ban on CSAM users would opt for virtual private networks. The organization has requested the authorities to further step up online vigil in these cities for potential exploiters. Also, the Rajya Sabha Committee on the issue, instituted by Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, has recommended stringent laws for Internet service providers like Jio and Airtel, and platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, to hold them accountable for child abuse enabled by these companies.