They say you can’t have an omelette without breaking eggs. Similarly, you can’t have child pornography[1] without abusing a child; a real child, being real abused.
With this in mind, most professionals working in this area no longer use the term child pornography and use instead the term child sexual abuse material or CSAM.
This makes it instantly recognisable for what it is, photo, video and text depictions of a child or children being sexually abused. From the mid 1980’s countries began to make this material illegal through strong legislation that reflected societies abhorrence at the fact that it existed at all and the advent of the internet accelerated this process. The UN, the Council of Europe and the EU all have strong legal instruments in place for their members.
In policing circles, we have worked hard to “re-see” this material as crime scenes in themselves rather than just evidence of crime for the person possessing or distributing it. It is only right that we put children first and work to identify the child in the material, to stop the abuse as early as possible. It is also right to see the material from the child’s perspective and not that of the abuser. Abusers, including those who possess and distribute the documented abuse, see it as pornography, designed to titillate sexually, to arouse. We must take that “regard” away by removing the word pornography.
This is all contained in the Luxembourg Guidelines[2] a terminology guide to harmonise the terms and definitions related to child protection. You will find this discussion on page 38.
Calling it porn denigrates the actors who “star” in these blockbusters, those human beings who did not consent, were not rewarded and who suffer life changing mental and sometimes physical scars.
By calling it Child Sexual Abuse Material you acknowledge the reality for the child, remind the degenerate who made it what they’ve done and signal your and societies’ disgust that they stoop so low in our name.
You choose.
[1] As defined in the Directive 2011/93/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 2011 on combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child pornography
[2] Pulled together by ECPAT Luxembourg after significant input from a large number of experts in the area of child rights and child protection. http://luxembourgguidelines.org/