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Internet child sexual abuse (c) 2018 Planet Earth Foundation<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The End Of Civilization As We Knew It, Part Seven.<\/strong><\/p>\n We continue our reflections on the end of civilization as we knew it, focusing on important news and related issues at the core of what the state of our civilization already was, which in large part led to where it is, as well as showing us where it needs to go.<\/p>\n In our last post, we noted\u00a0the headlines on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, other institutions, including the UN, which is supposed to be the institution defining international accountability on such issues, and\u00a0the two-year anniversary of the organizational manifestation of the international commitment to end child sexual abuse:<\/p>\n \u201cAt this point, all we have to say is summed-up by all there is to say in the end, an excerpt from our post on July 4, last year:<\/p>\n ‘As we said many years ago \u2026 bishops who covered-up abuse and made it possible \u2026 should have been removed. [And as we\u2019ve said for many years, this means all in the Catholic Church, as for every other institution and person in society, must be held accountable from top to bottom, systemically, criminally and civilly, to the fullest extent possible or that needs to be created.] \u00a0No end to the crisis until then. No future for the Church without this\u2014which needs to change in other basic human rights, with full equality for women, LGBT and all people excluded from the power of the male patriarchy, to survive as well.’<\/p>\n On the much larger issue of child sexual abuse and all forms of child abuse, of which the above, awful as it is, is only a drop in the ocean of horrors\u2014this summer was an important second anniversary.<\/p>\n Two years ago, in the summer of 2016, before we knew the full weight of what was about to fall on history, an historic moment occurred.<\/p>\n The UN and related agencies created The Global Partnership To End Violence Against Children to fulfill the Sustainable Development Goal to end abuse and neglect of a billion children, sexual, physical, in warzones\u2014half the children on earth. The initial project has been child sexual abuse on the internet\u2014a darkness that very few people have fully focused on to the full extent of the increasing scope and social impact, violating the youngest most. Concentrating on that specific in a digital world is a critical accomplishment. The rest depends on many things, including, as we\u2019ve pointed out, a UN system which itself stops abusing children, along with the entire aid and NGO universe of groups which this summer was shown more than ever before to be in its own universe of horror of sexually abusing children in countless numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n Half the children on earth abused. This is arguably the single most abhorrent statistic on record in the history of humanity.<\/p>\n But it hasn\u2019t gotten a fraction of the media attention of\u2014almost anything.<\/p>\n Another of the primary measures of the values of the human species and of the state of human civilization.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, first, as we pointed out two years ago, the acknowledgement of the enormity of this issue and the international commitment to end it is a crucial step, regardless of the impediments. And second, there has been a concerted concrete effort with results, albeit just the beginning, to stop child sexual abuse online\u2014an increasing scourge of our era. The effort that received support as the initial focus for the UN project was already in process, funded by the UK government to its credit\u2014We Protect (international government agencies, organizations and tech companies) to end the sexual exploitation of children online and particularly the leading resource on the issue in the UK and globally in many ways, The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF).<\/p>\n The scope of the horror, however, as the IWF and related institutions and organizations have made clear, is of another dimension, in more ways than one.<\/p>\n On Monday, the BBC News had two related reports:<\/p>\n \u201cChild sexual exploitation: How big is the scale of online abuse?\u201d and \u201cSajid Javid threatens tech giants over online child sex abuse\u201d.<\/p>\n Javid is the Home Secretary in the UK.<\/p>\n Yesterday there was a follow-up report in Forbes, \u201cWhen It Comes To Child Sexual Exploitation, We Cannot Ignore The Darknet\u201d.<\/p>\n These are posted below, along with a related New York Times report from August 7, \u201cFrom Child\u2019s Abuse to the Dark Web: Germans Recoil at a Mother\u2019s Role\u201d and an excerpt from our January 11 post with the Internet Watch Foundation report, \u201c\u2019The worst abuse is suffered by the youngest.\u2019 New statistics show babies and toddlers suffer the worst sexual abuse online\u201d<\/p>\n First, let\u2019s back up.<\/p>\n A one-dimensional axiom repeated often enough to enable individual and social denial is that statistics of huge numbers related to any horror aren\u2019t comprehensible, for various reasons.<\/p>\n Nonsense. Its tragically the impact of enormous numbers of victims that is often the catalyst for social waking-up and radical change.<\/p>\n So, here are some numbers about our children, right now, every day.<\/p>\n First, what age do we live in?<\/p>\n In a fundamental way, socially, culturally and economically, we live in the digital age.<\/p>\n Last week, we posted an article from The Guardian<\/a> about the impact.<\/p>\n Its overwhelming and omnipresent.<\/p>\n Its literally changing our brains as a species\u2014in a terrifying way. This isn\u2019t an anti-technology rant. It\u2019s a quaint thing called a fact. How we deal with it is another question requiring many more posts (past and future).<\/p>\n Meanwhile, who is impacted most?<\/p>\n Children, of course, whose brains are in basic developmental mode. The younger the more so. Indisputable basic science (and common sense.)<\/p>\n So how many children are using digital media, computers, tablets, mobile phones?<\/p>\n The great majority on earth at this point by their teen years and a huge number starting as toddlers.<\/p>\n These brains of a couple of billion children are being utterly altered. They don\u2019t have basic cognitive capacities and all the related developmental human capacities in nearly the same way as humans have since they started reading and writing\u2014unless they\u2019ve had the blessing of parents and other adults who intervened against the grain to help change this, or get that assistance later, but at an enormous cost in numerous ways. Rewiring the brain gets harder with time.<\/p>\n Now let\u2019s look at the number of this new generation of children who are already cognitively altered who are sexually abused online.<\/p>\n Let’s start with the number of children exposed to online adult pornography. That\u2019s a form of sexual abuse. It\u2019s a personal responsibility of caregiver adults to whatever extent they can to control it (which is far more than many do) and a collective responsibility of adults as a society, corporations, institutions and governments. Online pornography is virtually universally graphic, objectified, increasingly violent, with younger and younger looking participants–flooding the internet for free, showing up unwanted in a click related to something seemingly unconnected, or in never-ending amounts of grotesque content if sought.<\/p>\n It hardly existed in the print world this way before the internet and to the degree it did, could much more easily be kept from children in any form. It still harmed. Playboy and all its more graphic successors starting well over half a century ago certainly helped abuse and damage a lot of kids and create a more dumbed-down sexist world, as did (and does) Madison Avenue for that matter, and all its predecessor forms.<\/p>\n But the internet is another situation altogether.<\/p>\n Two years ago, Katherine Sellgren, BBC News education and family reporter wrote:<\/p>\n \u201cMost children are exposed to online pornography by their early teenage years, a study warns.<\/p>\n About 53% of 11- to 16-year-olds have seen explicit material online, nearly all of whom (94%) had seen it by 14, the Middlesex University study says.<\/p>\n The research, commissioned by the NSPCC and the children\u2019s commissioner for England, said many teenagers were at risk of becoming desensitised to porn.\u201d<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t different in any substantial way than other studies in other countries. And the rate of increase of this exposure is faster and faster as it becomes quantitatively larger.<\/p>\n So over half of the world\u2019s children are probably sexually abused in this way. And that\u2019s probably understated. It\u2019s a subject, even though widely studied and widely decried, that clearly hasn\u2019t come close to being fully absorbed as to its destructive impact.<\/p>\n Now let\u2019s go to the most commonly understood child sexual abuse online\u2013even more impossible to stomach for any normal human. Video and images of actual children being abused\u2013starting with babies, to toddlers, to young kids, to teens\u2013and being sought after and seen by countless predators. Clearly millions of children abused (we don\u2019t know how many), millions of images (we know that from authorities counting, but again we only know what they\u2019ve been able to find, which is universally acknowledged as far lower than what exists), and, from the most recent studies of 80,000 perpetrators in the UK extrapolated globally, estimated from only a 25 to 64 cohort of adults, around 8.5 million perpetrators based just on 2013 UN population numbers (with studies showing exponential growth in short periods based on capacity for discovery, so again, including factoring in population growth and changing demographics, the number is probably much larger).<\/p>\n Just stop. Take a break. Just be with those numbers before reading on.<\/p>\n We go now to the following:<\/p>\n The two reports from the BBC two days ago on September 3 and one yesterday from Forbes noted at the outset. A report on August 7\u00a0<\/span>from The New York Times on a repulsive case in Germany that exemplifies the larger unseen terror. And concluding with the excerpt from our post on January 11 with the report from the Internet Watch Foundation.<\/p>\n \u201cChild sexual exploitation: How big is the scale of online abuse?\u201d<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n By Reality Check team, BBC News, 3 September 2018<\/p>\n The full scale of online child sexual exploitation is difficult to know.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Sites are often disguised to make them appear legal, or are hidden on the\u00a0dark web,<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0which enables people to act anonymously and untraceably online.<\/p>\n The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) found 78,589 individual web addresses worldwide showing images of child abuse in 2017.<\/p>\n Of these, 274 were hosted in the UK. Each of these URLs could contain thousands of images or videos.<\/p>\n The IWF employs a team of analysts who proactively search for this material. They are responsible for finding about half of these sites, with the other half being drawn to its attention by members of the public.<\/p>\n Five countries were responsible for hosting 87% of this material:<\/p>\n Worldwide, Europe hosted the most sites (65%), overtaking the US, which used to have the highest concentration of sites containing images of child sexual abuse hosted on its servers.<\/p>\n There were almost 8.5 million reports of material showing child sex abuse from 45 countries around the world in 2016, according to the membership body of internet hotlines, Inhope.<\/p>\n This includes reports made to the IWF, and doesn\u2019t represent 8.5 million individual sites.<\/p>\n But it does not tell you anything about where this material was being produced or viewed.<\/p>\n Offenders could be viewing material from the UK, hosted on a server in the Netherlands, showing images of children in South East Asia, for example.<\/p>\n While fewer than 1% of these sites were actually run in the UK, a major concern is the number of people here accessing material, which is hosted overseas.<\/p>\n The Home Office reports that there are 80,000 individuals in the UK known to law enforcement who may pose a threat to children online.<\/p>\n That includes people who have been arrested, charged or convicted for offences involving indecent images of children. But it does not include anyone known to police who has not yet had action taken against them.<\/p>\n Inhope says that the hosting of sites containing these images is only one part of the picture when it comes to the \u201ccreation, distribution, and consumption\u201d of child sexual abuse material.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile hosting reports can tell us where the highest concentration of servers containing child sexual abuse material are located, this should not be conflated with the production and consumption\u2026which can happen anywhere.<\/p>\n \u201cThe absence of hosting information in a particular geographic region does not mean that abuse is not taking place, that digital abuse content is not being created, or that there are no victims in need.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSajid Javid threatens tech giants over online child sex abuse\u201d<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n BBC News and Joe Whitwell, BBC Technology reporter<\/em>3 September 2018<\/p>\n Home Secretary Sajid Javid has warned he will \u201cnot be afraid to take action\u201d against tech giants if they do not help to tackle child sexual abuse online.<\/em><\/p>\n Mr Javid said he was \u201cdemanding\u201d companies take \u201cmore measures\u201d \u2013 or face new legislation.<\/p>\n He added that some sites were refusing to take online abuse seriously \u2013 and highlighted live-streaming of child abuse as a growing problem.<\/p>\n Facebook, Google and Microsoft say they are committed to tackling the issue.<\/p>\n Mr Javid said it was his \u201cpersonal mission\u201d to tackle online child abuse, adding: \u201cI\u2019ve been impressed by the progress the likes of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and Apple have made on counter-terrorism.<\/p>\n \u201cNow I want to see the same level of commitment from these companies and others for child sexual exploitation.\u201d<\/p>\n Last week, his cabinet colleague Jeremy Hunt criticised Google for failing to \u201ccooperate\u201d with the UK over the issue.<\/p>\n Mr Javid refused to go into detail about what new legislation surrounding abuse might look like.<\/p>\n However, he stated his desire for tech companies to work more closely with law enforcement agencies, stop child grooming on their sites and block abuse material as soon as they detect it being uploaded.<\/p>\n Smartphone technology\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Referrals of child abuse images to the National Crime Agency (NCA) have surged by 700% in the last five years, according to new figures \u2013 and the NCA estimates that about 80,000 people in the UK present some kind of sexual threat to children online.<\/p>\n Furthermore, the images being uncovered are getting more graphic, the Home Office said, with abuse of babies and children under 10 becoming more frequently documented.<\/p>\n The Home Office warned that live-streaming of abuse was also on the rise, enabled by faster internet speeds, smartphone technology and the growing ease of money transfers across borders.<\/p>\n In his speech, Mr Javid said: \u201cOne officer I met during a visit to the NCA\u2019s Child Exploitation Online Protection Command, who had previously worked in counter-terrorism for over 20 years, told me how in all his years of working he\u2019s never been so shocked by the scale of the threat or the determination of the offenders as he is in his current job.\u201d<\/p>\n He went on: \u201cThe threat has evolved a lot more quickly than the industry\u2019s response and industry has just not kept up.<\/p>\n \u201cSo let me say this \u2013 I\u2019m not just asking for change, I am demanding it and the people are demanding it too \u2013 and if the web giants do not take more measures to remove this type of content from their platforms, I will not be afraid to take action.\u201d<\/p>\n What can tech firms do?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n By Joe Whitwell, BBC Technology reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n Millions of hours of video are uploaded to social networks every day, so finding illegal material can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.<\/p>\n Most of the tech giants have been investing in artificial intelligence to proactively search for videos and posts that contravene their policies or the laws of the countries they operate in.<\/p>\n In March 2017, Facebook rolled out pattern-recognition algorithms to help detect Facebook Live posts from people who might be thinking of harming themselves.<\/p>\n But algorithms alone cannot police content \u2013 and even a small percentage of incorrectly flagged videos could amount to thousands of clips every day.<\/p>\n Human reviewers remain an important part of the equation \u2013 but hiring them costs money.<\/p>\n In January, Germany introduced a new law demanding that social networks quickly remove illegal material or face fines of up to 50m euros.<\/p>\n That proved to be just the motivation many social networks needed to step up to the challenge. Facebook reportedly recruited several hundred new staff in Germany to deal with reports of illegal content.<\/p>\n Figures indicate that police in England and Wales recorded about 23 child sexual offences involving the internet every day in 2017\/18 \u2013 up from about 15 a day in the previous 12 months.<\/p>\n The scale of the offending has led to demands for internet giants to take more action to stop access to sexual abuse images and videos.<\/p>\n Technology companies doing more to remove indecent images from circulation would be a \u201cmonumental landmark\u201d in child protection, the NCA said.<\/p>\n There have also been calls for tougher sentences for people who download indecent images of children.<\/p>\n The agency added that in one week of action in July, 131 arrests were made, including teachers, a children\u2019s entertainer and a former police officer. Only 13 of those arrested were registered sex offenders, 19 others held positions of trust.<\/p>\n The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF)<\/strong><\/a>, which assesses and removes online child abuse material, said it fully supported Mr Javid in his warning.<\/p>\n Susie Hargreaves, IWF chief executive, said offenders were becoming more \u201csophisticated in their crime\u201d.<\/p>\n Tony Stower, head of child safety online at the NSPCC, said it was right that the Home Secretary is laying down the challenge to big tech companies.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cThese firms have been told time and again to play their part in stopping online child abuse, but have done very little.\u201d<\/p>\n The NSPCC is calling on the government to create an independent regulator with power to investigate and fine platforms which do not do enough to catch groomers.<\/p>\n \u2018Cutting edge\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Facebook said it takes the exploitation of children very seriously.<\/p>\n A spokesperson told the BBC: \u201cIt\u2019s why Facebook works closely with child protection experts, the police and other technology companies to block and remove exploitative photos and videos, as well as to prevent grooming online.<\/p>\n \u201cWe agree with the home secretary that by continuing to work together in this way, we can make more progress, faster.\u201d<\/p>\n Google said it takes a zero-tolerance approach to child sexual abuse material and has invested for two decades in technology, teams and partnerships to tackle the issue.<\/p>\n The firm announced that it was making available \u201ccutting-edge\u201d artificial intelligence that can dramatically improve how non-governmental organisations and other technology companies review content \u201cat scale\u201d and protect more children.<\/p>\n Microsoft condemned child sexual exploitation as a \u201chorrific crime\u201d, stating that the company works closely with others in industry, government and civil society to help combat its spread online.<\/p>\n A spokeswoman said: \u201cPredators are constantly evolving their tactics and that is why we work collaboratively with other companies\u2026 to create tools that protect children online and help bring perpetrators to justice.\u201d<\/p>\n How to report child sex exploitation<\/strong><\/p>\n If you\u2019re worried that a child or young person is at risk or is being abused you can contact the children\u2019s social care team at their local council. You can choose not to give your details.<\/p>\n You can report it online to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection command (Ceop).<\/p>\n Or you can call the NSPCC 24-hour helpline on 0808 800 5000 for expert advice and support.<\/p>\n If a child is at immediate risk call 999, or call the police on 101 if you think a crime has been committed.<\/p>\n Children and young people can call Childline free on 0800 1111 where trained counsellors are available 24 hours a day, every day.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen It Comes To Child Sexual Exploitation, We Cannot Ignore The Darknet\u201d<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Forbes, Nikita Malik, Contributor, Cybersecurity, Sep 4, 2018<\/p>\n Yesterday Sajid Javid, the United Kingdom\u2019s Home Secretary, demanded that technology companies take child sexual exploitation more seriously. He warned of \u201ctaking action<\/a>\u201d\u00a0against those that refused to do so.<\/p>\n Impressed by the steps that Facebook, Microsoft, and Google had taken on terrorism, the Home Secretary asked them to use the same techniques to tackle child sexual exploitation.<\/p>\n One of the suggestions was for\u00a0technology companies to work together<\/a>\u00a0to come up with tools to detect online child grooming, which can then be offered for free to other companies. If this sounds familiar, that\u2019s because it\u2019s the same as\u00a0The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIF CT<\/a>).<\/p>\n But in actual fact, the techniques used by tech companies to find image patterns to feed into technology to remove terrorist material \u2013 known as \u201chashing\u201d \u2013 was first done in the realm of ending child sexual exploitation.<\/p>\n And while the Home Secretary\u2019s comments are welcome \u2013 and the creation of an independent regulator or fines are sure to incentivize platforms to review more content using human intelligence \u2013\u00a0 the blame cannot be put squarely on technology companies alone.<\/p>\n I have been a vocal\u00a0critic<\/a>\u00a0of some tech techniques of monitoring terrorist content, but I cannot see how a successful policy will operate without one critical component: more resources in policing the Darknet, where the majority of child sexual exploitation material lies largely unregulated, and with no responsibility on the part of any company.<\/p>\n In fact, one could go so far as to argue that as social media companies become more savvy in regulating their platforms, we will see more of this material appear on the Darknet.<\/p>\n The Darknet \u2013 \u201cthe\u00a0criminal<\/a>\u00a0underbelly of the internet\u201d \u2013 is hard to access, largely unregulated and acts as a repository of \u201chidden<\/a>\u201d\u00a0sites accessible through uniquely downloadable software programs that support encryption.<\/p>\n Users of the platform\u00a0use sites as a place to upload, share, and view tens of thousands of posts involving the sexual abuse of children, all operating under the impression that their use of The Onion Router (TOR) makes their online activity\u00a0untraceable<\/a>.<\/p>\n Take the case of Playpen,\u00a0a members-only Darknet website that hosted material relating to the sexual exploitation of children. The site had around 160,000 members worldwide, making it, at the time, the largest child pornography\u00a0website<\/a>\u00a0that the FBI had ever come across.<\/p>\n The subsequent investigation into the identities of the site\u2019s users, led by the FBI and the United States Department of Justice, was one of the largest and most challenging in the fight against online child\u00a0exploitation<\/a>.<\/p>\n To start, the Darknet is not impenetrable. The first lead in the Playpen investigation, for example, came in December 2014 when a \u201cforeign entity\u201d shared the true IP address of the Playpen server, because of two\u00a0errors<\/a>\u00a0made by the designer of the website.<\/p>\n Using what are described in court documents as \u201cstandard investigation measures,\u201d the FBI located the site on four hard drives on a server in North Carolina. Seizing a copy, they then arrested the man deemed to be its owner in Naples, Florida: Steven Chase, who was then sentenced to 30 years in\u00a0prison<\/a>.<\/p>\n The seized copy of the site was then placed onto a government-owned server in the Eastern District of Virginia, and a warrant was obtained to deploy a Network Investigative Technique (NIT) to help reveal the true identities of the site\u2019s users.<\/p>\n Playpen was then hosted on the government-owned server for 13 days, from 20 February to 4 March 2015. During this time, the NIT was implemented thousands of times, gathering crucial information which was compiled into \u201clead packages\u201d and sent to relevant offices or authorities inside the United States and around the\u00a0world<\/a>.<\/p>\n Though it was not long after the shutdown of Playpen that another website grew to become the largest child pornography website on the TOR network, the investigation was a success in that it produced at least 870 arrests worldwide (368 of which were in Europe) and led to the identification or rescue of at least 259 sexually abused children outside of the United States.<\/p>\n The Darknet is an important place for policing, and its role in facilitating criminal activity \u2013 including child sexual exploitation \u2013 cannot be ignored. It is troubling that it is not mentioned in the Home Secretary\u2019s\u00a0remarks<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the United Kingdom, the National Crime Agency and GCHQ set up a specialist\u00a0unit<\/a>\u00a0to look at the Darknet and child abuse back in 2014. But to end child sexual exploitation online, it remains clear that more resources must be dedicated to policing and coordinating intelligence approaches on the Darknet.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom Child\u2019s Abuse to the Dark Web: Germans Recoil at a Mother\u2019s Role\u201d<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n The New York Times, By\u00a0Melissa Eddy and Christopher F. Schuetze, Aug. 7, 2018<\/p>\n BERLIN \u2014 The case would have stoked public outrage if the mother had known her young son was being raped and had done nothing to stop it.<\/p>\n But when Germans heard that she and her boyfriend had raped the boy themselves and served him up to pedophiles on the dark web, the fury only grew.<\/p>\n The mother and her companion \u2014 identified only as Berrin T., 48, and Christian L., 39, in keeping with German privacy laws \u2014 were convicted on Tuesday of sexually abusing her son over the course of two years, beginning when he was about 7. The abuse included inappropriate touching, rape and making videos that were placed as advertisements on the dark web for pedophiles \u2014 among them a German soldier \u2014 who paid the couple thousands of dollars to abuse the boy.<\/p>\n For many Germans, the most horrific part of a horrific case was the woman\u2019s complicity, which violated deeply held assumptions about motherhood and contradicted the common image of sexual predators as male. But the case also shocked the country for the severity of the abuse and the failure of authorities to protect the child, despite repeated opportunities for intervention.<\/p>\n Interest groups and politicians called for an investigation and for better training of social workers and judges in recognizing potential sexual abuse of children. Johannes-Wilhelm R\u00f6rig, Germany\u2019s independent commissioner for questions pertaining to sexual abuse of children, called for an inquiry to determine what signals may have been missed.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were obviously structural problems in cooperation between the courts and authorities that must now be thoroughly investigated,\u201d Mr. R\u00f6rig said. \u201cThe case in Staufen has exposed an array of misjudgments and failures. We owe it to this child to draw the right consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n The pair, who lived in Staufen, in southwestern Germany, were arrested in September 2017. They were found guilty on Tuesday of 40 charges of aggravated sexual assault, including rape, forced prostitution, distribution of child pornography and child endangerment. Both had admitted at the start of the 11-day trial to abusing the boy, now 10.<\/p>\n Christian L. was also found guilty of sexually assaulting a 2-year-old girl in early 2015. He was sentenced to 12 years in jail and ordered to remain in preventive custody upon his release.<\/p>\n According to the court, Berrin T. helped facilitate her boyfriend\u2019s contact with the little girl, who was mentally and physically disabled. Several months later, in May 2015, the girl\u2019s mother broke off contact with the couple, effectively ending her abuse.<\/p>\n Christian L., a known pedophile with a criminal record who had previously shown an interest in abusing little girls only, then began abusing the boy, the court said. Berrin T. did nothing to stop the increasingly perverse advances on her son, which began with showing him pornographic videos and bribing him with expensive gifts in exchange for being allowed to touch him inappropriately, it said.<\/p>\n When the trial opened in June, Christian L. admitted to the charges of abuse, telling the judge \u201cI am the main culprit.\u201d<\/p>\n But the presiding judge, Stefan B\u00fcrgelin, handed a longer prison sentence, of 12 and a half years, to the boy\u2019s mother. She was always present during the assaults, the court said, initially calming the child and then sexually assaulting him herself.<\/p>\n In his pronouncement, the judge cited a video showing Berrin T. violating her son as evidence that her offenses were not only sexual, but also included emotional and psychological abuse. He said she broke her son\u2019s trust in his \u201cclosest female caregiver\u201d and robbed him of the protection of his home.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the boy dared to show or voice any resistance, he was frequently ignored, or dismissed with physical abuse,\u201d the court said, adding that the couple would \u201cregularly shout at him\u201d and insult him using \u201can utterly contemptuous choice of words.\u201d<\/p>\n Before the arrest, the youth services agency considered the man a potential danger to children because he had been caught with child pornography in an unrelated case, and was ordered by the authorities to stay away from children. The agency also knew that he was frequently in the boy\u2019s home.<\/p>\n In early 2017, the agency\u2019s concern was great enough to temporarily place the boy in a foster home, but he was returned to his mother after she convinced a family court that she was aware of her boyfriend\u2019s history and could protect her son from him.<\/p>\n The mother, who had sat stonily throughout the trial, showed no emotion while the sentence was read out, German news media reported. She chose not to challenge the ruling, which in addition to jail sentences, included fines worth 42,500 euros, or $49,200, to be paid to the victims.<\/p>\n \u201cShe accepts full responsibility for what happened to her son,\u201d Matthias Wagner, an attorney who represented the mother told the Badische Zeitung newspaper. \u201cThis is important for the boy. He can now be certain that this process is over.\u201d<\/p>\n But in a country where a mother\u2019s \u201cright to the protection and welfare of society\u201d is enshrined in the Constitution, it was the role played by Berrin T. that most appalled Germans.<\/p>\n\n
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