Child porn help promised

Press, 23 February 1985, Page 11

Child porn help promised

NZPA-Reuter Washington Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands — all bases for international smut peddlers — had promised to help the United States combat child pornography, a State Department official said yesterday. ’■ An Assistant Secretary of State, Elliott Abrams, told the Senate sub-committee on investigations that the promises of co-operation had been made in meetings with officials of the three countries last month. “I would like to underscore the extent to which Dutch, Danish, and Swedish officials share our view of the seriousness of the problem posed by child pornography and the role which It plays in the sexual abuse and exploitation of children,” Mr Abrams said. Much of the child pornography that circulated in the United States was exported from those three countries.

“It is encouraging to note that the enhanced cooperation... on the part of all concerned U.S. agencies

can now be considered as matched by exactly this kind of shared effort on the part of the Dutch, Danish, and Swedish Governments.” Mr Abrams said that Dutch officials hoped their Parliament would soon pass a 'law making it easier to prosecute child pornography distributors.

Under Dutch law no prosecution is possible unless it can be proved the children were forced to take part. The sub-committee’s chairman, William Roth, a Delaware Republican, called the Dutch law “unbelievable.” Mr Abrams said that Danish authorities had recently used information supplied by the United States to charge three persons with producing and selling child pornography, and Sweden had requested similar information. The sub-committee also heard evidence from a convicted child molester, who said there was a direct link between child pornography and molestation.