Child pornography is seen as cyber crime more than anything else, according to national human rights monitor Corinne Dettmeijer-Vermeulen in a report out on Wednesday. ‘There seems to be no awareness that child pornography is sexual violence against children. That shocked me’, she says in the Volkskrant.

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As long as the link between child pornography and sexual violence is not made the government will fail to protect children, Vermeulen says. She thinks tackling child pornography should be the responsibility of the health ministry, not just the ministry of justice.
‘I don’t know how it is but I have not come across any data on the victims of digital abuse, nor of its prevention or detection. It may have something to do with the fact that former family minister André Rouvoet decided that child pornography should be classified as organised cyber crime and was therefore a matter for the ministry of justice. But there are few commercial child pornography producers in the Netherlands. Most of it is home made. All you need is perpetrator, a victim and a telephone. Nearly all sexual crimes have a digital component’.
Computer household object
Vermeulen says that what she has been trying to convey in her report is how the internet has become part of children’s everyday lives. ‘ICT is not big or scary anymore. Cameras and computers have become household objects like any other. Prevention is key.That is why health ministry organisations like juvenile care should pay much more attention to where the children are: Hyves, Facebook..that is where sexual violence against children is taking place, as well as day care centres and sports clubs.’
Victims
Vermeulen also feels victims of child pornography are left in the cold. ‘Sometimes victims of child pornography are forced to smile into the camera to make the perpetrators feel less guilty, which makes the abuse even worse. The images are put on the internet and stay there for ever. Then a question like ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere’ takes on a whole different meaning. Child help organisations have not begun to understand this’.
The internet has been instrumental in showing that child pornography exists on a large scale, says Vermeulen. ‘If we had had the internet forty years ago the victims of sexual abuse in the catholic church would have been believed. The images would have proved it. That is why I want the fight against sexual abuse of children to be a permanent government responsibility. In ten years’ time I don’t want to see a commission asking: where did we go wrong in cyber space.’