U.S. needs to prevent sexploitation of kids

By Orrin G. Hatch
Published: Friday, May 19, 2006 4:12 p.m. MDT
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Children, families and communities are paying an increasingly higher price for what is being called the pornofication of our culture. Protecting children from being sexually exploited through pornography requires vigorously enforcing laws that are designed to attack the ever-expanding tentacles of this monster. I am pushing Congress to step up to the plate in this fight to protect our children by providing more effective tools.

More than 11,000 new porn films are released annually in the United States. The number of pornographic Web sites skyrocketed from 14 million in 1998 to 260 million in 2003. Porn companies now sell online movies that can be downloaded to a DVD and watched on television.

Not long ago, online gaming involved killing monsters or racing cars. In coming months, we will witness new interactive games such as "Naughty America" and "Rapture Online." A recent study by two computer science professors affiliated with Google found that more than 20 percent of Internet searches from mobile phones and PDAs are after porn. States are passing laws prohibiting the viewing of porn on screens in cars and minivans. As the Los Angles Times put it last month, the porn industry is "again at the tech forefront."

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Porn's ripple effects are also spreading. Researchers such as Jill Manning, a marriage and family therapist completing her doctorate at Brigham Young University, are documenting the particularly negative impact of Internet pornography. Consuming pornography harms individuals, relationships, families and communities.

Most insidious and devastating is the exploitation of children. One study estimates than one child in five is sexually solicited online. Reports to the CyberTipline at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children increased more than tenfold in just the last five years. A society that increasingly views adults as little more than pleasure-producing body parts will also lose its inhibitions about exploiting children.

According to the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, more than half the countries in the world have no laws at all addressing child pornography. While the United States is one of the few countries with laws the center deems acceptable, we can and must do better to fight the sexual exploitation of our children.

To that end, I have introduced the Protecting Our Children from Sexual Exploitation Act. Federal law prohibits producing depictions of either actual or simulated sexually explicit conduct involving minors. Both categories are illegal, and those who produce child porn must be prosecuted.

As a preventive measure, the law also requires producers of sexually explicit material to keep records regarding the identity and age of performers and make those records available to law enforcement. This important record-keeping law is currently inadequate. My bill would correct its defects.

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