The Global Trade in Child Rape by Lori Handrahan

Last Thursday The Guardian reported on a United Nations publication, released in September, that described four U.N. staff fired for trading in images and/or videos of child sex abuse on their work computers. Journalists from Agence France-Presse to Al Arabiya followed this story and referenced that U.N. work computers were involved. The trade in child rape, aka child pornography, in the workplace is an all too common problem that few employers, the U.N. included, are handling properly.

Bloomberg recently profiled a Swedish software, NetClean, that scans workplace computers and reports child porn use to law enforcement. NetClean’s experts estimate one in every 1,000 people trade in child sex abuse images/videos at work. My research suggests this may be a conservative estimate. From pediatric oncologists, police chiefs, senior military staff, daycare and preschool teachers to professors, my research shows that those arrested for child porn in America almost always commit the crime at work.

In August and September, an average of two professors per week in America were arrested, arraigned or sentenced for child porn crimes almost all committed on university and college computers. One example: University of Minnesota professor Christopher DeZutter told law enforcement officers who arrived at his home to arrest him for child pornography, “You are not going find a lot of this at home. I do most of this at the office.” Investigators said his university laptop was “full” of child sex abuse files. This included, as is common, the rape of infants.

Read more.

ABOUT DR. LORI hANDRAHAN

Dr. Lori Handrahan has worked for the United Nations, on and off, for the past 20 years. Her forthcoming book, Child Porn Nation: America’s Hidden National Security Risk, details America’s child sex-abuse epidemic. Her Ph.D. is from The London School of Economics. She can be reached on Twitter @LoriHandrahan2

---