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FENLEY: - In the past year court
cases involving child pornography increased dramatically showing
an alarming trend. Many of our townships have high poverty
levels. Child rights activists say they have become fertile
hunting grounds… for paedophiles recruiting our children for
pornography.
UPS: - “GINA” – I call them and they stop. Then they ask,
blowjob? They then ask, can I take pictures? I then undress and
they take pictures of my breasts, my lower body.
UPS: - VOICER - She claims to be thirteen but she looks like a
tiny ten year old. Most girls her age still play with dolls.
Instead she and many of her friends have become toys in the
hands of ruthless pornographer-paedophiles.
UPS: - IYAVAR CHETTY; FILM AND PUBLICATION BOARD - We have seen
an increase in the number of cases going through courts since
two or three years ago, whereas previously you saw about five or
six cases a year now its about thirty or forty cases a year.
UPS: - “GINA” – They take the camera and point it at me and ask
me to show my body. I then show them and they take pictures.
UPS: - AL MALAMBO; WEBWATCH SOUTH AFRICA - I can go to any
township and actually pay children a ridiculous amount of money
to perform.
UPS: - VOICER - It does not take long for a customer to arrive
and to close a deal. Macassar Beach is just a five minute drive
away.
PRE - TITLE: MINOR EXPOSURE
UPS: - VOICER - “Gina” not her real name shows us the way to
Macassar beach. It is on the Cape’s False Bay coast, about half
an hour’s drive from Cape Town city centre. One of her regular
customers is a man she calls Jack. From her description it
sounds as if he could be a German immigrant. Usually
accompanying her is her fifteen year-old friend.
UPS: - “GINA” – When he stops we get in and then drive to the
beach. When we get there we arouse him and give him a blowjob.
After that he pays us and takes us home.
UPS: - VOICER - Jack drives a luxury BMW 4X4 which allows him
to drive to secluded spots on this beach. Gina says many of the
men who bring them here, ask to take pictures of them.
UPS: - “GINA” – they ask if they can take two pictures. When you
say yes, they take two pictures of you.
UPS: - VOICER - One of her friends, sixteen year old “Michelle”,
had similar experiences.
UPS: - “MICHELLE” – He will say I just want to take some photos
of you. I’ll take my top off and then he takes pictures of your
breasts and your lower body. Then you must stand and he takes
pictures of your whole body.
UPS: - VOICER - We are told that they regularly go with Jack to
his home in the upmarket Somerset West Helderberg Estate. The
girls agree to show us the house where they allegedly took part
in sex orgies all of it, according to “Michelle”, captured on
video tape with hidden cameras.
UPS: - “MICHELLE” – THEY CALL HIM Jack. I do not know his
surname. He drives a silver-grey BMW X5. When he takes the girls
home he has sex with them in a room. There are cameras. He
records what he does with the girls in that room. He also has
pictures he brought from overseas. Young girls from twelve years
up you can see it is in the same room, young girls he is also
there. But he does not show his face.
UPS: - VOICER - Child rights activists say cases such as this
are common. They say children often downplay the fact that
pictures were taken of them. It took quite a while before
children spoke to us about the filming that took place during
sex.
UPS: - JOAN VAN NIEKERK; NATIONAL COORDINATOR CHILDLINE SA -
Children don’t disclose involvement or exposure spontaneously
often when they report abuse they will report on the abuse
itself what happened between themselves and the offender but
they very seldom spontaneously talk about the fact that pictures
were taken of them. Often come across instances in which
children are not even aware that they are being filmed.
Sometimes we find offenders using hidden cameras which are very
accessible now. Cameras put in light sockets cameras that can
be hidden very easily in a piece of furniture or hidden on the
offenders the less sophisticated the child is and the less
exposure to that kind of technology the less likely they are to
know that they are being filmed.
UPS: - “GINA” – At home he brings out little white mattresses
and we lie on it. He then touches us and afterwards he takes us
home.
AD BREAK 1
UPS: - VOICER - We drive through the streets of Somerset-West.
Gina and her friends finally spot a silver-grey BMW that fits
the description of Jack’s car. We follow the car but a woman is
driving it. They say it could be his ex-wife. Apparently he has
two of these luxury vehicles. Jack’s world and where they come
from are worlds apart. Jack’s lifestyle and theirs are world’s
apart.
UPS: - VOICER - They live in nearby Macassar named in honour of
Sheik Yusuf from Macassar in Indonesia. He has regarded as the
founder of Islam in South Africa and arrived as a political
prisoner of the Dutch East India Company. The legacy of slavery
and colonialism is still evident here. It is up to charity
organisations to lend a helping hand. During the day there’s no
parental control. Gina’s says she lives with her mother who
works on a nearby farm. Her mother only comes home after dark.
She dropped out of school last year.
UPS: - AL MALAMBO; WEBWATCH - You have a large divide between
the haves and the have-nots yet you have a very strong technical
environment. Those kinds of environment are perfect breeding
grounds for the technologically regarding mainly illegal
pornography so when you combine those for example. If I have
someone coming from America and I am coming from South Africa my
perception will be this will be the perfect environment actually
to be able to set up a child pornography business over the
internet. I can go to any township and pay children a ridiculous
amount of money to perform.
UPS: - VOICER - Gina does not have full-on penetrative sex.
UPS: - “GINA” – there are those that want to penetrate my vagina
but when I say no they will leave it. They will put their
fingers in my vagina and I masturbate them and give them a
blowjob.
UPS: - VOICER - She says the money is good.
UPS: - “GINA” – I get five hundred, hundred and fifty or two
hundred and fifty. I buy stuff all the time cold drinks, chips
the whole night for my friends.
UPS: - VOICER - Last year new tougher legislation regarding
child pornography was introduced. Minimum sentences for
production, distribution or possession of child pornography
increased from five to ten years.
UPS: - SNR SUPT ANNEKE PIENAAR; NATIONAL COORDINATOR OF FAMILY
VIOLENCE, CHILD PROTECTION AND SEXUAL OFFENCES UNIT - If you
take a picture of a person that has been murdered that is
exactly the same it’s the picture of a crime and child porn is a
picture of where a child was sexually exploited or abused or
raped.
UPS: - VOICER - The Film and Publication Board also set up a
hotline for reporting suspected cases of child pornography.
UPS: - SHOKIE BOPAPE-DLOMO; CEO FILM AND PUBLICATIONS BOARD -
The most important for us is public awareness, and public
awareness campaigns. We need to teach the South Africans about
pornography in general and its effects on society but
particularly obviously focusing on child porn in totality. The
second one would be capacitating the FP board because as things
now stand we cannot even begin to make a difference.
UPS: - IYAVAR CHETTY; FILM AND PUBLICATION BOARD - As far as the
amendment is concerned Child porn is any image or description it
could be text of any person under the age of eighteen or who
looks like that person could be under eighteen engaged in sexual
conduct. If you take a picture of your three year old in a bath
is fine, but if you take that same picture out of the family
album and you put it on a website with other pornographic images
that becomes child pornography.
UPS: - VOICER - Because of bad socio-economic conditions,
countries like Brazil have also become havens for child
pornographers and sex predators.
UPS: - SNR SUPT ANNEKE PIENAAR; NATIONAL COORDINATOR OF FAMILY
VIOLENCE, CHILD PROTECTION AND SEXUAL OFFENCES UNIT - In SA we
have not yet found specifically commercially child pornography
we have found child pornography produced by people locally in
South Africa but then also for the purposes of sharing it with
one another.
UPS: - VOICER - Recently a forty two year old man from Belhar in
Cape Town, appeared briefly in the Somerset West magistrates
court. He was caught on Macassar Beach in his kombi filming a
porn movie. With him were a thirteen and a fifteen year-old. He
is facing charges of indecent assault and producing child
pornography. The concern is that images of our own children
could soon find their way onto the countless child porn websites
via small-time local producers.
UPS: - AL MALONBO - Only when we start seeing our children
basically being exploited being abused that is when it is
already to late.
AD BREAK 2
UPS: - BOYS 1 - You get lots of things you get video clips where
the girl is stripping and then you get pictures and you also get
poems it is all sexually related.
UPS: - VOICER - The new cell-phone technology makes it easy to
access adult pornography. Even for school children – like this
group.
UPS: - BOYS 1- Phones like this you can download from a website
you can do a lot with these phones of today and it is open to
anyone, big, young small, old.
UPS: - BOYS 2- I have downloaded naked pictures of women
different kind of stuff. You sms to exact mobile or something
thy will ask you what kind of pictures you want. Then you reply
and say you want naked pictures of woman or something and they
reply back to you and give you the pictures.
UPS: - BOYS 1 - On e-tv you must sms and the say five rand a sms
or seven rand and fifty cent a sms you can see how they are
doing sex.
UPS: - VOICER - The new technology also makes it extremely easy
for someone to produce pornographic material. Even children can
film themselves or their friends for personal use or
distribution and sale.
UPS: - JOAN VAN NIEKERK; NATIONAL COORDINATOR CHILDLINE SA -
cell phone technology does provide a serious challenge many
children have access to cell phone technology. Not many parents
sit down and talk seriously with their children how this form of
technology can be exploited.
UPS: - BOYS 1- I have this friend and he has done something like
this on his d500. He was having sex with his girl and he was
recording it and he showed the whole class.
UPS: - JOAN VAN NIEKERK; NATIONAL COORDINATOR CHILDLINE SA -
They can generate their own pornography if they are involved in
any sexual behaviour themselves or are exposed to sexual
behaviour between their peers. They can send these images to
their friends they can review themselves they can use it in
order to punish someone they have fallen out of love with. They
can use it for blackmail. The uses of these images are multiple.
UPS: - BOY 2 - I got a friend at school who had done it to his
girlfriend and he has it on his cell phone and you can see her
face everything its like live
UPS: - BOYS 1 - you can put it on the internet and they can send
it download it.
UPS: - GIRL - Boys take their cameras and they ask their
girlfriends to undress and take pictures and they send it to
their friends and when the girl walk down the street and they
laugh at the girl and they make funny remarks.
UPS: - VOICER - To these children it sounds like innocent fun.
But what they’re talking about is a serious offence carrying a
ten year jail sentence.
UPS: - JOAN VAN NIEKERK; NATIONAL COORDINATOR CHILDLINE SA -
Many people who view child pornography, images of children being
abuse often brush it off as a picture, and they forget that
behind every image of a child involved in a sexual act, is a
child who is being abused in order to make that picture.
UPS: - VOICER - It is here on the internet that child porn
flourishes.
UPS: - IYAVAR CHETTY; FILM AND PUBLICATION BOARD - there is an
increase in availability of child abuse images on the internet
anywhere in the world means an increase everywhere in the world
now if the forum child porn in Australia a few weeks ago
estimated that there are fourteen million images of child abuse
on the internet that means that anyone in SA with a PC and a
telephone and a modem has access to fourteen million child abuse
image.
UPS: - VOICER - New legislation compels service providers to
report child porn websites but millions of images of children
are still on offer.
UPS: - IYAVAR CHETTY; FILM AND PUBLICATION BOARD -Service
providers now are required to register with the board and they
are required to put into place reasonable measures to prevent
access to child pornography by their clients obviously they have
to know which sites. They have knowledge that a particular site
offers child pornography or is hosting child pornography they
are under legal obligation to report it to the police or to
block that site so that nobody can access that site.
UPS: - VOICER - You only have to punch in teens and it will jump
out are you aware of those?
UPS: - IYAVAR CHETTY; FILM AND PUBLICATION BOARD -They are aware
of it but they have no obligation to actively monitor for child
pornography their obligation arise only if they know that this
person is a client of ours and he is hosting child pornography
and if they have that knowledge regardless how they got that
knowledge then they have a legal obligation to act.
UPS: - VOICER - Al Malombo works in the internet industry. He
started “Webwatch”, an internet watchdog still waiting for full
government approval.
UPS: - AL MALOMBO - Webwatch basically would want to be able
actually without paying go and inspect that site and well this
would be entirely up to the service provider or up to the site
owner themselves to allow webwatch to see what material they do
have available. This is the place where paedophiles and
pornographers have a field day the internet you can consider
their realm. And you talking about an international medium where
they have free reign. Which is almost impossible to govern.
UPS: - VOICER - Advocate Chetty says financial institutions can
help to clamp down on people accessing child porn from the
internet.
UPS: - IYAVAR CHETTY; FILM AND PUBLICATION BOARD - Most of the
people that are accessing child porn through the internet are
paying for it and payment via the internet is usually by credit
card. Now if banks and financial institutions are prepared to
say we will not process any credit card transactions involving
known child porn sites that would be very helpful. It would show
social responsibility on the part of the financial institutions
and banks putting children before profits.
UPS: - VOICER - We visited a legitimate sex shop and found a
large section dealing with teenage sex…all with the FPB
(approval) sticker. But based on the new legislation, movies
such as these are questionable. The Film and Publication Board
simply does not have the staff to recall and review some of the
material. The Board expects members of the public to bring
violations to their attention. The Home Affairs Deputy Minister
Malusi Gigaba is currently waging an all out war against child
pornography. He paid a surprise visit to porn shops in Cape Town
to see if they have illegal material on their shelves. Nothing
was found except a few suspicious-looking postcards.
UPS: -MALUSI GIGABA; HOME AFFAIRS DEPUTY MINISTER - Pornography
in general plays a major part in contributing to child
pornography. We will be engaging the mobile phone companies, we
will be engaging internet service providers, we will be engaging
the media and broadcasters in particular to ensure that they
also assist in furthering this campaign by complying with the
Film and Publication Act.
UPS: - VOICER - The challenge for government now is to
investigate, arrest and charge offenders and provide support for
victims.
UPS: - IYAVAR CHETTY; FILM AND PUBLICATION BOARD - Our
legislation is very good and compares with the best in the world
the problem we have is that we don’t have the resources to back
it up. For instance if you take technical services they are
understaffed and under resourced I’m told for instance that
technical services in Western Province consist of two people who
have to cover all computer crimes not just child porn all
computer crime for the whole of the Western Cape.
UPS: - JOAN VAN NIEKERK; NATIONAL COORDINATOR CHILDLINE SA -
What I am concerned about is the skills within our criminal
justice system particularly the police in relation to policing
child porn. We find that even our trained police sometimes fail
to pick up the possibility that this child is involved in child
pornography because of their high case loads.
UPS: - VOICER - One of the success stories was the six year jail
sentence of paedophile schoolteacher William John Creasy late
last year. He was in possession of the largest quantity of child
pornography ever seized in Western Cape and was found guilty on
nine charges of indecent assault on young boys. He was sentenced
on four counts under the Film and Publications Act.
UPS: - IYAVAR CHETTY; FILM AND PUBLICATION BOARD - I thought he
was lucky to get away with what I thought was a fairly light
sentence. I maybe prejudice because having seen images of child
pornography it is for me one of the most horrific images that
you can come across.
UPS: - JOAN VAN NIEKERK; NATIONAL COORDINATOR CHILDLINE SA - I
would also like to see men and women who are convicted of making
or involved in child porn, once they’ve served their prison
sentence, being then placed in treatment programs in a community
to deal with their aberrant behaviour particularly when their
aberrant behaviour is a compulsive pattern of behaviour. You can
think of it like a drug or alcohol addiction.
UPS: - IYAVAR CHETTY; FILM AND PUBLICATION BOARD - It is
psychologically traumatising because the child is growing up.
Knowing that somewhere forever there would be an image of her
forced to do a disgusting sexual act.
UPS: - VOICER - Nobody knows the extent of child pornography in
South Africa it is an unseen enemy corrupting the souls of our
most precious commodity our children. If you want to report
cases of child pornography call the hotline—0 800 148 148
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