Canadian Mounted Police lead charge on child sexual exploitation

Feb 28, 2011

Bangkok - Canadian police have launched a campaign with their Thai counterparts to use the internet to protect children from sexual exploitation in cyberspace, officials said Monday.

'Out intention is to create a web of partners who can provide protection for children,' said Suzanne Williams, director of the Canada-based Child Protection Partnership (CPP).

The group has been working with the Canadian Mounted Police and Interpol to crack down on child exploitation via the internet in Canada and abroad.

One of their notable successes was the arrest in 2007 of Canadian paedophile Christopher Paul Neil, dubbed 'Swirly Face' for his digitally scrambled face in pornographic images he distributed on the internet.

Neil's image was unswirled by computer experts from various police technical units around the world including the National Child Exploitation Coordination Center (NCECC) of the Canadian Mounted Police.

After his photo was distributed internationally Neil was tracked down in north-eastern Thailand and sentenced to more than five years in jail for abusing Thai minors and distributing child pornography over the internet.

'That was a very successful story to show how countries can work together to arrest somebody,' said Sergeant Jackie Basque, an officer at the NCECC.

Basque was in Bangkok to introduce the Child Exploitation Tracking Software designed by Microsoft to help law enforcement agents, civil society and children themselves combat sexual exploitation over the internet.

The week-long training course, hosted by Plan International - a UK-based child protection group, will include technology transfer to the Royal Thai Police and a field trip to Pattaya - a Thai beach resort notorious for its sex industry and cases of child abuse.

'This technology and the workshop will help police learn how to trace evidence to use in an investigation and take it court to prosecute offenders,' said Police Lieutenant General Chatchawal Suksonjit, assistant commissioner general of the Thai Police.

CPP has chosen Thailand and Brazil as hubs for fighting child exploitation on the internet in South-East Asia and South America, respectively, where new technologies have provided a new platform for an old crime.

'The world of internet computer technology has created a virtual space like a public swimming pool, that children and young people are using and yet there are no lifeguards on duty,' Williams said.

She stressed that it will take more than just training law enforcement agencies in the new cyber menace.

'We know that law enforcement as the only protection mechanism is not enough,' Williams said.

The CPP is also providing training via schools, community groups and temples to get children directly involved in the process of defending themselves from exploitation via the internet.

'They are starting to report places where violence occurs and using technology to do that,' Williams said of children in Thailand. 'Perhaps technology will start to tell a story that has been a secret reality for too long.'

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