Spare the children from photoshopped creep shots for their own good

PROTECTING children from abuse online is a big deal.

Barnardo’s is running a campaign. It features this image:

Bit off, no, to choose a picture of an attractive young woman / girl in make-up. If you find her attractive are you a pervert? It turns out that the woman /girl in the picture is not a sex abuse victim. It’s a picture of young woman whose age is not given. We then get this:

“My name is Lucy. I’m a character that has been created to protect the identity of the real children’s stories I’m going to represent. I’m 13, but my story has happened to children younger and older than me. I went to court because I had a chance to see the man who sexually exploited me punished for what he’d done. But in the courtroom I was made to feel like the abuse I experienced was my fault. They said that because I look mature for my age, men could easily think I was old enough to have sex. They also said that I seduced him! That I agreed to it all. But I only had sex because he tricked me into it, promising to care for me. I trusted him because he was older but he abused my trust and hurt me. Why couldn’t the court remember that I’m a child and I can never truly agree to being sexually exploited?”

The courts are full of real-life stories. Why invent a victim, and then present her case without all the facts? Her case went to court. Isn’t it a good thing that the justice industry took her seriously. They don’t always.

You are then invited to sign a petition:

Dear Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales,

I want to make sure that sexually exploited children, whatever their age are never treated as if the abuse is their fault. To achieve this, I want our legal system to remember that in child sexual exploitation cases the victim is still a child.

Never? Should we always mistrust and suspect the adult, the accused, then? The child is held as sacred. We’re constantly invited to see the child as a barometer of our morals. End global warming to save the children. Bring water to Africa to save the children. Introduce ID cards to save children. Jut add children and your cause is morally correct. Justice and the process of law and fair trials take a back seat when the children are mentioned. No-one objects to the view that children mut be protected, even if discredits institutions, like the criminal courts. Children are abused. Adult in positions of power do abuse it. They should be condemned. But what about intention? What about free will? Uncertainty should not be abolished.

Over in Brazil, online service provider Universo Online is plugging its parental control service. It warns: