25 years after the Gibbings report in 1996, we have this:‘Child pornography rampant in T&T’Camille Hunte Mar 27, 2021 Updated Mar 28, 2021 Comments
The arrest of a 35-year-old man for possession of child pornography videos and images last week comes as no surprise to president of the Trinidad and Tobago National Council of Parent Teacher Associations (NCPTA) Clarence Mendoza, who says child pornography is rampant in Trinidad and Tobago.
Neil Ramdeen, a T&TEC employee, was arrested and charged after police discovered at his home a large quantity of pornographic material involving minors. It is the latest incident highlighting what Mendoza described as an ongoing problem in this country.
Speaking with the Sunday Express, Mendoza said the production and distribution of child pornography has been going on for a long time and has infiltrated the school system.
He said there have been many instances in the past of underage pupils making pornographic material which ends up online.
In 2019, a Joint Select Committee on Human Rights, Equality and Diversity, chaired by now Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly, heard details of the levels of child pornography in the school system.
Gadsby-Dolly said then that there had been 69 child pornography reports received by the Education Ministry over a five-year period, with 67 per cent of the cases involving girls.
The majority, she said, were of the children themselves producing and distributing pornographic content.
Mendoza said little has changed from then to now.
“In the school environment what we have seen is that the students would have made their pornography videos and that would have gone around on social media,” he said.
The last one originated from a pupil at a South secondary school, he said.
“We have other schools where pupils would have gotten into those types of compromising positions with other pupils. We have also had discussions where pupils in the privacy of their homes would have made short videos for other pupils where male pupils would ask female pupils to show their bodies and expose themselves.”
He said some girls give in to peer pressure and send sexual videos and images of themselves which are then circulated online and in some cases even sold to adults without the girls’ knowledge.
“We are realising it is being sold around by the pupils to adults. Since the arrival of camera phones we have seen it grow from recording pupil school fights to now pupil pornography,” he said.
Mendoza said child-on-child pornography may not be taken as seriously as opposed to an adult with a child.
But he argued that it is just as serious and illegal and noted that adults are the ones viewing and purchasing the material.
He said there is a need for stricter penalties not only for the adults involved but also for teenagers who produce this content.
Currently, Mendoza said schoolchildren found engaging in the production of pornographic material are given a simple five-day suspension.
“It is something that stakeholders need to sit and discuss because it is very serious but it feels like it’s not.”
He said parents need to take a more active role in their children’s lives and have discussions about sex and safety.
Sandrine Rattan, president of the International Women’s Resource Network, also expressed concern that child pornography has become rampant in the country.
She said children are even more at risk in the current Covid-19 environment where they are spending more time online and may be targeted by predators in chat rooms and on social media.
Rattan said to begin to tackle the issue, one step should involve making all sexual offences against children, including pornography, non-bailable and also to have some kind of rehabilitative programme for perpetrators.
Demand for child
pornography high
Psychologist and Independent Senator Dr Varma Deyalsingh weighed in on the issue of child pornography, noting that it exists because there is a high demand and a market for it.
He said there is a “brotherhood” of child porn consumers who trade videos and images.
“Many users of child pornography have large collections. They have a global network and exchange pictures, like an exclusive club. They need to feed their need by getting more pictures,” he said.
They also profit by selling this material, he added.
Deyalsingh noted that consumers of child porn are everyday people who may never be suspected of engaging in these activities.
They may be teachers, coaches, paediatricians or even priests, as people with a sexual interest in minors often put themselves in professions where they have easy access to children, he said.
“Viewers of child pornography on the Internet are found to be in relationships, employed, educated, no criminal record. One cannot tell who has this hidden desire.”
He said attraction to children might be linked to people with paedophilia tendencies who are born with this attraction and know it is wrong but they hide and seek out excitement in the form of child porn.
Some may seek help while others escalate, leading to sexual molestation of a child.
In some cases, minors engage in these acts due to peer pressure.
Giving an example, Deyalsingh said he had a teenage patient who was brought in by her mother who said she willingly left school with friends to make a “movie”.
“She felt her friends were doing this, it was a thrill and they were paid by two older men to do so,” he said. “She did not think she did anything wrong. Her mother was more traumatised by this. The girl felt ‘big-up’ and accepted by her peers.”
Deyalsingh said the teen felt it was normal as a lot of people were posting similar content online.
He said after making the video, she does not know what was done with it.
He further recalled an incident some years ago where a hacker accessed and shared hundreds of photographs of naked females on social media, many of them children from Trinidad and Tobago.
“The images were being openly distributed and widely viewed on social media, some of which also appear on a pay-per-view pornographic site,” Deyalsingh noted.
“Some children make porn to be popular, some for money, some boys to show they are big men and get higher esteem among other youths. There is the culture of gang sex in schools where some girls are forced or participate for money. Some pornographic material is generally produced on the school compound via the use of students’ cellphones, and usually distributed for a small fee to other students from the same school or other schools.”
Deyalsingh noted that the effects on child victims can be long-term and include feelings of shame and anger, children becoming withdrawn and isolating themselves, anxiety, depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), substance abuse to cope, sleep and eating disorders and suicidal ideation.
It may also lead to children growing with a distorted view of sex and problems establishing healthy sexual relationships as adults. However, Deyalsingh said to address child pornography in a meaningful way, adults have to take a look at themselves.
“The problem seems to be what we are doing as adults. To stop child pornography, we must stop adult exhibitionism and pornography. Adult private videos must be guarded well.”
The State must also put legislation in place and the police must monitor more aggressively, he added.
“We need the Cybercrime Bill to be passed and a dedicated team of police to be surfing the net. We need parents to be vigilant and get this team involved if they suspect something is amiss. We need linkages with the Cybercrime Unit of other nations who have ongoing investigations. We desperately need the Cybercrime Bill to assist the Children Act to attack this problem. The Cyber and Social Media Unit of the police needs to be given more teeth,” Deyalsingh said.
Deyalsingh said little seems to have changed since the 2001 case of Fr Andrew Allen and the 1996 case of zoo curator Hans Boos.
Allen was arrested in Ireland for indecent assault of two minors.
He had lived in T&T for 18 years and was alleged to have taken sexual images of local children.
Boos, a former curator at the Emperor Valley Zoo, was arrested in Miami on child pornography charges, having been found to have been in possession of a large collection of child pornography, some in which he was pictured in sexual acts with children and was found to have distributed the videos and images as far as Germany and Thailand.
“It seems after all these years we have been left behind in this fight,” Deyalsingh said.
https://trinidadexpress.com/news/local/ ... d3dbb.html