Fighting child pornography 'a priority' for Malta police

Tackling child pornography over the internet, a "heinous" crime which transcends borders, needs a joint effort by as many countries as possible, Hamish McCulloch, from Interpol, said yesterday.

"We try to identify victims of sexual assault to rescue them from continuing abuse," he told the media at the beginning of a three-day conference on child abuse over the internet being held at the Corinthia San Gorg. Malta has been a member of Interpol since 1971.

Mr McCulloch, the assistant director of Interpol's Trafficking in Human Beings Sub-Directorate, said the victims are sometimes newborns who are subjected to serious sexual assault and rape, which is photographed or videotaped and distributed globally.

Law enforcers must realise that when it comes to internet investigations, the physical borders must be taken down, he said.

"The internet has no borders, no boundaries and no different legislations. Paedophiles do not recognise international borders," he said, adding that children are sexually abused in all countries.

Exchange of information is paramount because a missing image could provide the final link to identifying the victim. Mr McCulloch said the international police organisation works with all its 184 member states to try and stop these horrific crimes.

He explained that the first step in an investigation is trying to determine in which country the abuse took place. This is when the pooling of resources from different countries becomes indispensable, since it is sometimes small things that enable the experts to determine where an image comes from.

Mr McCulloch said Interpol has created a database of 550,000 images of child abuse. Image-comparison software allows the organisation to find out which images were taken in the same place. Around 30 new images are posted online every week.

Although Interpol has 184 members, Mr McCulloch said online child abuse is not a crime priority for all of them. Asked why the conference was being held here, he said Malta recognises the seriousness of this crime and was one of the 26 countries directly online on a 24/7 basis and at the forefront in the fight against child pornography.

Assistant Police Commissioner Lawrence Cauchi said Malta's police force has been actively involved in initiatives to combat child pornography and abuse and promised that local police efforts to stem this abuse would remain a priority. The Assistant Commissioner did not have statistics at hand of such abuse locally.

"We have a legal and moral obligation to ensure the safety of our children regardless of race, religion or geographic location."

The internet, he said, has helped build communication channels that were previously unavailable or difficult to establish as well as the creation of structured collections of child abusive images.

"The losers in this case are our innocent children."