DEFINITIONS

Sexual exploitation

A practice by which a person achieves sexual gratification, financial gain or advancement through the abuse or exploitation of a person’s sexuality by abrogating that person’s human right to dignity, equality, autonomy, and physical and mental well-being; i.e. trafficking, prostitution, prostitution tourism, mail-order-bride trade, pornography, stripping, battering, incest, rape and sexual harassment. Sexual exploitation preys on women and children made vulnerable by poverty and economic development policies and practices; refugee and displaced persons; and on women in the migrating process. Sexual exploitation eroticizes women’s inequality and is a vehicle for racism and "first world" domination, disproportionately victimizing minority and "third world" women. Sexual exploitation violates the human rights of anyone subjected to it, whether female or male, adult or child, Northern or Southern.

Pimp

One who promotes and/or profits from the sale and/or abuse of another person’s body or sexuality for sexual purposes, or the production and/or sale images made of that person, e.g. trafficker, pornographer, brothel madam, third party manager, talent director, mamasan, mail-order bride agent, prostitution tour agent.

Predator

One who exploits conditions of inequality to buy and/or abuse for personal sexual satisfaction those with less power, e.g. john, punter, buyer, client, customer, trick, pedophile, rapist, sex offender, child molester, pornographer

Internet

A computer based global communication network enabling rapid transmission of text, images, sound and video, e.g. the net, world wide web, the web, online, email, chat room, newsgroups

Sex industry

The collection of legal and illegal businesses and single and multi-party operations that profit from the sexual exploitation of women, children, and sometimes, men in trafficking, organized prostitution, and/or pornography; e.g. brothels, massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, mail-order-bride agencies, prostitution tour agencies, "adult entertainment," "adult" bookstores, pornographic Web sites.

TECHNOLOGY, GLOBALIZATION AND SYSTEMS OF EXPLOITATION

When those with power introduce a new technology into a system of oppression and exploitation, it enables the powerful to intensify the harm and expand the exploitation. This characterizes what is happening as predators and pimps, who stalk, buy and exploit women and children, have moved to Internet sites and forums for advertising, documenting and engaging in sexual exploitation.

Sexual abuse and exploitation are indigenous to all patriarchal cultures, institutions and nations, but the recent, rapid economic and political restructuring in many regions of the world has escalated the trafficking of women and children. There are approximately 200 million people around the world are forced to live as sexual or economic slaves.

The widespread political and economic restructuring, referred to as globalization, involves large shifts in wealth, employment and populations in a complex set of processes that is freeing those with power from local and even national regulation and control. Supranational corporations and international banking institutions that are richer and larger than most countries, and organized crime syndicates that are richer and larger than some countries, are setting the pace and are no longer accountable to any national government. In this milieu, women and children are increasingly becoming commodities to be bought, sold and consumed by tourists, military personnel, organized crime rings, traffickers, pimps, and men seeking sexual entertainment or non-threatening marriage partners. The global sexual exploitation of women and children that is accompanying globalization is a human rights disaster. Pino Arlaccki, who heads United Nations efforts to fight organized crime said, "Slavery is one of the most undesirable consequences of globalization." He added, "We regret this is not considered as a priority by any country at the moment."

Accompanying and facilitating globalization is a revolution in communications and technology. The computer based telecommunications system known as the Internet can send text, images, audio and video files around the world in milliseconds. Significantly, the cost of access to this global communications network is within the financial reach of most people in wealthier nations. Within the last five years this network with its worldwide audience has been undergoing commercialization. Some of the commodities are women and children. The Internet has accelerated and deepened the marketing of women for the purposes of sexual exploitation.

Forums on the Internet have become meeting grounds for pimps selling women, predators buying women or stalking victims. Web sites and newsgroups have become show rooms and bragging spaces for every type of violence perpetrated against women and children.

Like other powerful constituents of globalization, the Internet is almost without any regulation. Its international reach and new technologies have made local and national laws and standards either obsolete or unenforceable. Nicholas Negroponte, Director of the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and founder of Wired magazine said, "As we interconnect ourselves, many of the values of a nation-state will give way to those of both larger and smaller electronic communities." With Internet technology and communications pimps and predators can access global markets and unsuspecting victims. Pimps can locate their computer servers in countries with the most libertarian laws and operate outside the reach of regulations in all other countries.

The Internet allows pimps and predators to create their own culture outside community standards or interference. The technology of computer based communication also provides a high degree of privacy and anonymity for men to engage is stalking, viewing and buying of women and children in acts of sexual exploitation.

THE REPORT ON PIMPS AND PREDATORS ON THE INTERNET

This report will examine how men are using the Internet to engage in and promote the global sexual exploitation of women and children. As a non-commercial communication medium the Internet is used by predators and amateur pimps to exchange information on where to do go buy women and girls in prostitution, exchange pornographic images and videos, and even, broadcast in real time the sexual abuse of children. Predators use the Internet to contact victims and display their abuse of women and children.

Pimps are using the Internet as a commercial venue to advertise and sell several types of sexual exploitation of women and children. Commercial prostitution tours are advertised and arranged. Mail-order-brides are displayed and contact information sold to men seeking wives or sexual partners, followed by "romance tours" to meet women. Advertisements and sites for pornographic images and videos, strip shows and live sex shows saturate the web.

This report also documents police efforts to stop predators from using the Internet to engage in the sexual abuse and exploitation of children. A number of specialized units have been set up to catch predators of children. In several cases there has been unparalleled international cooperation among police units to break-up international child pornography and abuse rings.

The Internet has received so much bad publicity for the amount of illegal and offensive materials that can be obtained that the Internet industry has responded with efforts at self-regulation. Several of these self-regulatory programs, their goals and results are reviewed in this report.

Frustrated by the lack will or ability of the Internet industry and the police to stop predator’s use of the Internet for the purposes of sexual abuse, especially child sexual abuse, vigilante groups have formed to impose their own form of ethics and standards on the Internet. A few of these groups and their activities are described.

Finally, the connection between the sex industry and the Internet industry is examined. The symbiotic relationship between the two enables us to see that the commodification and exploitation of women and children is an integral part of globalization.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Definitions:
Sexual exploitation
Pimp
Predator
Internet
Sex industry

Introduction:
Technology, Globalization and Systems of Sexual Exploitation
The Report on Pimps and Predators on the Internet

Non-Commerical Use of the Internet for Sexual Exploitation

Part 1
Predators Report on Their Exploitation of Women and Children
Predators Take Turns with One Woman
Part 2
Predator's Bad Experiences -- Women's Pain and Suffering
Predators Enslave Women and Girls
Predators Buy Children
Part 3
Predators in Strip Clubs
Predators with Cameras
Predators with Hidden Cameras
Part 4
Predators Make and Trade Child Pornography
German Crackdown on Child Pornography on Usenet Groups
Part 5
Predators Find Children on the Internet
Stings -- US Police Undercover Operations Against Predators
Avoiding Accountability and Deflecting Blame

Commercial Use of the Internet for Sexual Exploitation

Part 1
Growth of the Commercial Sex Industry on the Internet
Organized Prostitution Tours
Mail-Order-Brides
Connections Among Types of Sexual Exploitation
Part 2
Live Videoconferencing -- Online Prostitution
Pimps on the Internet
Women in the Commercial Internet Sex Industry
Other Forms of Violence Against Women on the Internet

The Sex Industry and the Internet Industry
Sex Industry and Internet Search Engines

Self-Regulation of the Internet
Internet Meldpunt Kinderporno
Internet Watch Foundation
CyberTipline
Zero Tolerance Policy Promised

Independent Tiplines and Vigilantes
PedoWatch
Ethical Hackers Against Pedophilia
Se7en -- Genuine Hacker Terror
Morkhoven

Globalizing Women's Rights and Dignity

Resolution -- Misuse of the Internet for the Purpose of Sexual Exploitation

This report was funded by NORAD, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation. many thanks to Kvinnefronten (Women's Front) of Norway - especially to Agnete Strom and Anne Soyland, without whose sponsorship the project could not have been funded.