New Online Child Porn Trend Baffles Lawmakers

Child predators have found a novel new way to surf sexually explicit Web sites without it being called technically “illegal.” Pedophiles are now visiting child porn sites featuring images of children who are not completely nude, but are covered by bits of clothing to avoid child pornography charges. This latest trend has found thousands of patrons in the past seven months who pay more than $30 a month to access erotic images of a single profiled “model”. One of the advertisments for a site claimed “Call 911 before viewing!!!Only 9 years old! Hot!”, before mentioning the words, “Nonnude website: 100% legal.”

The trend for these “model sites” arose after an array of investigations of the child pornography business led by the US Justice Department, state and local law and congress forced wholesale shutdowns of child porn sites. Now, internet watchdogs have another problem on their hands because the new sites cannot be slotted into the “child porn” category. More than 200 such sites have been found by The New York Times through online advertising aimed at pedophiles, featuring children between the ages of 2 and 12. Moreover, an exclusive site offers images of girls and boys who appear to be 5 or 6 years old, wearing just diapers.