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	The Campaign against Child Pornography Is Having Good Results By Andrew Hunt Guelph Mercury October 3, 2009 http://news.guelphmercury.com/Opinions/EditorialOpinion/article/541620 Newspaper columnists — and this includes yours truly — have a tendency to accentuate the negative. It’s easy to find gloom and doom in the world. Alas, corruption, natural disasters, human rights violations, political scandals and other social problems are widespread and make choice fodder for newspaper op-ed pieces. Pundits ought to do a better job of informing the public of encouraging developments. One bright spot of the last 20 years has been the global war against child pornography. The fight has often occurred underneath the radar, involving numerous government agencies and law enforcement officials, and it has been effective. The tragic case of ex-Roman Catholic bishop Raymond Lahey has brought the issue to the fore in Canada. Lahey, of the archdiocese of Antigonish, N.S., resigned as bishop recently after authorities allegedly discovered an extensive collection of child pornography on his laptop computer. Ottawa police issued a warrant for Lahey’s arrest and the incident has shaken the Catholic community in Nova Scotia and the rest of Canada. But it is not an isolated example. News of Lahey’s resignation coincided with other anti-child pornography operations, including a police raid in Spain to destroy a major child pornography enterprise. The Spanish operation involved more than 600 police officers raiding 130 premises over a two-week period, resulting in 74 arrests and the destruction of a powerful ring. Spanish police are currently investigating the child porn ring’s Internet connections in an effort to track recipients of the obscene images. Similar sting operations have occurred around the world. In Austria, police netted 22 suspects and identified 136 others involved in a massive child pornography ring. The Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States crushed an operation in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. Across North America, there have been many high-profile cases of people similar to Lahey who have been charged with possession of child pornography. In Philadelphia, Lawrence Scott Ward, a 66-year-old former professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania, was arrested and sentenced to 25 years for creating child pornography. Ward allegedly used his personal finances to lure poor children into his horrible web of child pornography. In particular, he targeted boys in the Philippines. Last month in Winnipeg, a woman received a prison sentence for child porn possession. A retired Simcoe teacher narrowly avoided jail time for the same offence. An Alberta man accused of child porn possession committed suicide last month. Similar cases abound in the United States. In Mitchell, Ind., the son of that town’s mayor was arrested for possessing pornographic images of children. And in Oregon, James Auchincloss, the half brother of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, pleaded not guilty to possessing and duplicating child pornography. The list goes on. What makes the crime of child pornography so insidious is that it’s difficult to track. The emergence of the World Wide Web over the past 20 years has led to its proliferation. Child porn rings have evolved from modest-sized mailing operations specializing in lurid books and magazines to a lucrative global industry connected together by the Internet. A lot of work remains to be done. Yet the crusade against child pornography provides us with an inspiring case study of how governments around the world are co-operating extensively with each other, sharing intelligence and resources, to resist a common enemy. A mere 20 years ago, the issue of combating child pornography wasn’t even on most people’s radars. Now, child pornography faces resistance wherever it rears its ugly head. And the message of the fight against it is clear: Child sexual abuse will not be tolerated or ignored.
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