AA Edit: Name, blame and shame

With time on their hands and an Internet connection at their disposal, they could have taken recourse to humour, campy or fine, British or Indian style, via videos and albeit-restricted WhatsApp forwards to ward off boredom. They could have gone wild on social media, risked a broken friendship and a half. They could have turned to books, music or art for inspiration, listened to an author or two at a lit fest on Instagram. With all these options on offer, the lockdown instead saw a 95 per cent increase in Indian traffic to Pornhub, an international pornography website.

International agencies such as Europol, the United Nations and Ecpat (End Child Prostitution and Trafficking) also reported increased online activity from child pornography addicts amid lockdown. These individuals have taken to targeting children by befriending them online. Disturbingly, Indian searches frequently looked for images and videos of bleeding, choked and tortured children, indicating a sadistic mindset.

Child sex abuse has been the scandal of the millennium ever since Boston Globe in 2002 uncovered the notorious Catholic Church sodomies. Then came the trial and conviction of the American financier, Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein, found dead in August 2019, is believed to have committed suicide. A year prior, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. had resigned from the College of Cardinals following similar offences. That was close on the heels of Archbishop Anthony Apuron of Guam being removed from office by the Vatican. Closer home, we had vicar Raju Kokkan and pastor Robin Vadakkumchery in Kerala abusing youngsters, both of whom were since arrested — the latter got life.

Evidently, child pornography is a stepping stone for paedophiles and ephebophiles to committing sexual offences. Yet until 2009, it was not illegal to browse child pornography in India. While under IPC sections 292 and 293 and Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, sale, distribution and advertising of child porn were punishable by fines and/or a jail term between two and seven years, the law was still silent on its consumption. It is Section 67B that first criminalised creating, collecting, searching, browsing and downloading of content involving child porn. India had finally woken up to the need of having comprehensive legal machinery to deal with cyber crime.

While invoking the law in the time of coronavirus may prove infructuous when it comes to reforming child pornographers, perhaps reminding them of the depravity of their clandestine activities may not. Let’s do that — by shaming them.