{"id":14572,"date":"2023-05-10T21:48:54","date_gmt":"2023-05-11T04:48:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=14572"},"modified":"2023-05-22T03:06:14","modified_gmt":"2023-05-22T10:06:14","slug":"issue-of-the-week-human-rights-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=14572","title":{"rendered":"Issue of the Week: Human Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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“‘Extreme\u2019 Category A child sexual abuse found online doubles in two years”<\/em>, IWF, Annual Report<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the US, we are heading into the Mother’s Day weekend. It’s a corporate, money-making, emotional-holic day that never existed until it did and now is a required performance addiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a Children’s Day too, but you’d never know it. Of course how many people have read the Convention on the Rights of the Child? Required reading if there ever was any. And how many people know that the only two countries that haven’t ratified it are the US and Somalia?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what is a real mother (or father, related to the other high holy day soon approaching)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone whose entire<\/em> physical, mental, emotional and spiritual being is dedicated to the protection and nurturing of all<\/em> children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Entire<\/em>. For all<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pay any price, bear any burden, for this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only meaningful life, the only path to true personal liberation<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All other relationships of even a modicum of healthy interaction are based on this primary value. Starting with our relationship with ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until this is the overwhelming majority of people, there has been no meaningful evolution to even the minimum requirement of being decent beings, and children, the most vulnerable of us, the future of us, our most basic responsibility, will suffer unimaginably and have their lives devastated. Far more<\/em> than half of them on this planet to be sure, far past<\/em> the tipping point of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual viability as a species. And we will, sooner rather than later in this most vacuous and self-centered moment yet in human existence, finally achieve the deserved end of our species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or we could choose to do the other thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We could choose to be real mothers, or fathers, or baseline decent adults. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s an understandable but far past anachronistic impulse in many to think they have to have biological children or have children in any way or that their<\/em> children are more important than others, or at the least that since they are responsible for taking care of their<\/em> children, it is somehow natural to place them ahead of others. The emphasis on their<\/em> is on the possessive. The natural attachment that shoud occur is from the child to the caregiver, because the experience of real love is of giving to the child, not getting or having.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is shorthand for what we have written about often. But in the end if we sacrifice the well being of any child over another, we continue to feed the dynamic that ultimately destroys all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The worst pandemic in the world and in history is the sexual abuse of children. Joined by other abuse and neglect, the statistic of at least half the children on earth is well established. Sexual abuse of a child is a unique violation that needs no further explanation. Always underreported, the facts always get revealed as darker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And incomprehensibly, as we’ve pointed out often, a plurality of child sexual abuse is comitted or enabled by family members, often parents, then other family members or trusted adults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as we’ve pointed out for some time now, the sexual abuse of children is growing exponentially worse because of the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most important agencies in the world, one of the most responsible for tracking and fighting this, is the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) in the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their new Annual Report, the trend from hell has continued. A doubling of abuse images every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we reported some time ago, The New York Times expose Exploited<\/em> covered this ground more broadly, as never before. Every image a crime scene. Millions, hundreds of millions now, abuse images every year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March 2020, as the Covid pandemic was starting to rage, we noted the potential horror of what was to come with Covid, and then launched into a new special podcast by the Times on the worst ongoing pandemic in history which linked to all our posts on the unprecedented front page Sunday Times Exploited<\/em> pieces, in “A Criminal World Of Child Abuse.”<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why has this continued? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Times put it in a phrase, because we don’t want to look in the ugly mirror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we actually cared about children a wit beyond sentiment and expression, which would mean fighting this like fighting the Nazis in World War Two until unconditional surrender, then we would force the internet companies–all of them and all of their enablers, to stop it. They don’t because of money. They could single-handedly eliminate most of it. They hide behind privacy issues that fuel the sale and use of their products. And with using those very words as if defenders of bills of rights who would change positions instantly if profit instructed, they enable pulling down the shade over the ugly mirror. Privacy with exceptions could be done easily. Of course there’s some trade off. Like in all life. The delusion of complete freedom is the ultimate psychosis. You can’t yell fire in a theater as the famous example goes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IWF and others have championed bills in the UK and EU parliaments to begin to do what has to be done. (Even if they are muddied somewhat by the support of some of the offenders, because, mainly, they don’t have the goverment funding they should in our view–although independence from this in pushing to impact policy and in working with government agencies has its place, the same point applies to association with internet companies in reverse–however, the association helps IWF put pressure on these companies to make some progress and do better than they likely otherwise would; its complex and this is just a synopsis of our observations) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s an excerpt from The Guardian in London last year (9 Aug 2022):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IWF\u2019s chief executive, Susie Hargreaves, said self-generated abuse should be \u201centirely preventable\u201d, which should include educating parents, carers and children about technology use and sexual abuse within the home.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChild sexual abuse, which is facilitated and captured by technology using an internet connection, does not require the abuser to be physically present, and most often takes place when the child is in their bedroom \u2013 a supposedly \u2018safe space\u2019 in the family home. Therefore, it should be entirely preventable,\u201d she said.<\/em> …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Self-generated child sexual abuse imagery is typically created using webcams or smartphones and then shared online on a growing number of platforms. The IWF says children are groomed, deceived or extorted into producing an image or video of themselves.<\/em> …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hargreaves added that the UK online safety bill<\/a> was essential for setting a regulatory example around the world. The bill, whose progress through parliament has been delayed until the autumn, requires tech firms to limit the spread of illegal content such as child sexual abuse images.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Momentum is gained, reistance is fierce, and the batle continues. The entire internet, cyber, digital enterprise world (and increasing AI aspect of this) is all part of the problem. When you see any of these entities stand up and scream that all must change to save babies from being raped and see them going from mouthing this and taking half measures (which they all do as a basic necessisty of branding) to changing and demanding to unmask the privacy of predators which means as with everything else that everyone’s privacy (already virtually nonexistent) will be dilluted in part–but with the protection of never allowing anything to be revealed except related to those who abuse and enable the abuse of children. Governments, of course, need to enforce this. Companies are absolutely reponsible to do so themselves, and should (and we believe will ultimately) be held accountable. But government policy is the only guarantee. Which means all of us demanding it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The writer of this post today, who will remain unidentified, was sexually abused as an infant. There are hundreds of millions of us. This is the ugliest mirror of all. Even other survivors sometimes have a difficult time really, truly, deeply looking at this. This barbarity of barbarities must be stopped and this must be screamed from everywhere to everywhere, all the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’re just getting started<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new IWF annual report states that “\u2018Extreme\u2019 Category A child sexual abuse found online doubles in two years.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s an excerpt:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The amount of Category A child sexual material discovered online has doubled since 2020, with newborn babies and toddlers among the victims of the most severe kinds of sexual abuse, new data reveals. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Internet Watch Foundation\u2019s annual report<\/a>, published today (April 25) shows that, in 2022, a record-breaking 51,369 of the webpages it took action to remove or block from the internet contained Category A child sexual abuse material.  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the most severe kind of imagery, and can include the worst kinds of sexual abuse, including the rape of children, babies, and even newborns, as well as acts including bestiality, or sadism. <\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s the report:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Extreme\u2019 Category A child sexual abuse found online doubles in two years<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Published:  Tue 25 Apr 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n