Child pornography

Child pornography or refers to pornographic material depicting children. It has been described as a form of child sexual abuse and is illegal in most countries, although a controversial British ruling argued that mere access to it could be interpreted as a victimless crime.

Relation to child abuse
Where child pornography involves depictions of children engaging in sexual conduct, the production of this material will in itself be legally prohibited as child sexual abuse in most countries. The profit that can be generated from selling such images is seen as a factor in encouraging the original abuse that is photographed or filmed. On the other hand, it has been argued that laws against the possession of child pornography constitute Thought crime.

Substantiated cases of child sexual abuse in the US declined dramatically in number between 1992 and (at least) 1998. A substatantial decline also appears to have occured in Australia. In contrast, the United Kingdom Children's charity NCH have stated that demand for child pornography on the Internet has led to an increase in sex abuse cases, though this conflicts with the Office for National Statistics's 2007 report on Child Protection Registers, which shows a decrease of approximately 27% in the number of sexually abused children between 2003 and 2007 on the register.

Whether or not artificially created erotic or pornographic material (e.g., lolicon, some pornographic dōjinshi, etc.) constitutes "child abuse" is highly disputed, as no actual children are necessarily involved in the production.

Link between viewing child pornography and subsequent acts of child sexual abuse
The purported link between use of child pornography and child abuse has been used to justify the prohibition of sexual depictions of children, whether their production involves child abuse or not. This link is itself disputed: Sex therapist Petr Weiss and Canadian Justice Jeff Shaw, for instance, have argued that child pornography use may decrease cases of child sexual abuse by allowing pedophiles to sublimate their desires.

In Canada
Canadian law forbids the production, distribution, and possession of child pornography. Prohibition covers the visual representations of sexual activity by children under 18 and the depiction of their sexual organ/anal region for a sexual purpose, unless an artistic, educational, scientific, or medical justification can be provided. It also includes the written depictions of children engaging in sexual activity.

Law that addresses dynamic aspects of the Internet by regulating the nature of live-time chatting and email communications that may relate to enticing children for pornographic (e.g., web cam) or other sexual purposes has passed in 2002. It also criminalizes the intentional access of child pornography.

In the Philippines
On September 15, 2007, the Children and Youth Secretariat of the Anti-Child Pornography Alliance (ACPA-Pilipinas) in the Philippines launched Batingaw Network "to protect and save children from all forms of abuses and exploitations." It is the largest anti-child pornography movement in the Philippines to date. It declared September 28 as the "National Day of Awareness and Unity against Child Pornography.