Enemy within

In Japan, children and women are
treated as " things " not only by those
who are charged and arrested by also
by the whole society.

One thing certain is that the majority of
people - both young and old - spent so many
years looking at dirty manga comic books
since they were little.

　　　－　Mainichi News (Dec 21, 2009)　－

　　　　Mothers sell pornographic images
　　　of own children in shocking new trend

Among the alarming increase in child
pornography cases to strike Japan in 2009 are
a number of particularly disturbing incidents:
Child porn made and sold by the children's
own mothers.

In many cases, mothers or other relatives
agreed to sell nude photographs of their children
to men they met on Internet underwear shops.
So far this year, at least 12 guardians have been
arrested on child porn suspicions related to
their own children.
Once the images are distributed on the
Internet, it is virtually impossible to recover them,
and the National Police Agency is now cooperating
with other branches of government on
formulating preventative policies.

"As a mother, you committed a deed as grievous a
s sexual abuse against your own child, whom
you are bound to protect with your very life,"
a Sendai District Court judge declared at the
conclusion of one such case. "And yet, you gave
a reason as preposterous as money for your actions.
From now on, pour your love into raising your child,"
the judge concluded, sentencing the 23-year-old
mother to one year in prison,
suspended for three years.

A woman from Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, had
sent her a digital camera to take nude photos
and videos of her 2-year-old daughter, promising
the mother "more than 1,000 yen per picture.
" The mother sent the images via e-mail.
According to a source with the investigation,
the mother received about 100,000 yen in total,
while the woman from Sakai sold the images
to an amateur child porn collector.

According to a senior officer, police began seeing
such cases for the first time in 2009, with as
many as nine mothers as well as two fathers
and one sister-in-law arrested in relation to
child pornography.
Most of the buyers of such material exposed so
far are male amateur collectors, who meet the
willing parents or relatives through Internet
underwear shopping sites.

There has also been once case of a couple
auctioning off flash drives full of pictures of
their daughter over the Internet.
The husband and wife, aged 33 and 28,
were arrested for taking pictures of their
7-year-old daughter in her underwear,
putting the images on two flash memory
sticks and listing them on an auction site,
finally sending the sticks to a customer in
Aichi Prefecture for 15,000 yen.

"We were able to make some easy money.
We were able to sell about 900,000 yen-worth
(of pictures) from February to September,
" the couple apparently admitted.

According to the National Police Agency, 412
people were arrested on child porn charges
involving 338 children in 2008, and the total
looks set to climb in 2009.