Law must act as a dam to stem tide of child pornography

According to official news, some netizens have submitted clues about websites such as Shotazone spreading pornographic pictures and videos of underage persons. An investigation is now underway. Gmw.cn comments:

Child pornography victimizes the children involved by inflicting both physical and psychological wounds on them. Besides, when child pornography is spread online, illegal gangs usually follow suit, which in turn does greater damage to more children.

That's why it is forbidden by law in almost every modern society. According to China's Criminal Law, those who produce child pornography face criminal charges of rape or obscenity, while those who spread them online face penalties, too.

The legal enforcers have been acting rather efficiently in this latest case. Yet their task is rather difficult, because websites containing child porn have been growing quite rampantly in China. With the proliferation of smartphones, they have even made use of the new technology to spread their illegal content.

The root cause of this is: "Profit". By spreading child porn online, the illegal gangsters easily make huge profits, which in turn drives them to seek every way possible to evade supervisors. A common practice is to install the servers of their websites at overseas addresses, which makes it difficult for domestic police to strike against them.

It should also be noted that China's laws have deficiencies in fighting child pornography, as the penalties are rather light. Quite a high percentage of those who spread child porn materials online get public security penalties, instead of facing criminal charges. Besides, there is little penalty for those who hold or watch child porn.

It is necessary to strengthen the law and supervision too.