Child porn on the internet is nothing new, but an international organisation, Terre des Hommes, has adopted a novel method for busting the perverts who consume it. Meet Sweetie, the virtual Filipino girl who busted 1000 Humberts overseas.
In an effort to raise awareness about “Webcam Child Sex Tourism”, TDH posed as a 10-year-old Filipino girl named Sweetie in chatrooms where men solicit illegal webcam performances. This method for busting predators has been tried before, and as you’d expect, they have no problem generating interest in Sweetie. The method only goes so far because sooner or later, the men want to see what she looks like.
So the researchers created a virtual child that looks and moves just like the real thing, which in turn gets the pervs excited. (Amongst the evidence collected is video of the predators pleasuring themselves over webcam.) As Sweetie talks to the men, TDH uses bits of information they provide as well as other supposedly legal means, to track the men down. Today, the organisation handed over a dossier to Interpol containing information about the first 1000 men Sweetie busted. The work took just two months.
Terre des Hommes is trying to show that busting predators online is really easy. Indeed, since only six people have ever been charged for these webcam crimes, it seems that nobody’s even trying. To support TDH’s efforts, sign their petition online. [Terre des Hommes]