On the other hand, many children are unaware that their activities are being recorded and distributed. These symptons alone are not enough suggest sexual abuse, but are common to its victims. Such kids are also at high risk to later become perpetrators of child exploitation themselves. The most destructive feelings these child victims carry are guilt and shame. In a matter of weeks, working just 12 hours per week, one undercover Bedford County Sheriff's deputy received electronically thousands of sexually explicit images containing children as young as 18 months of age.
Child abuse claims more than one million victims per year worldwide.
The Report from the Stockholm Congress Against the Commercial Exploitation of Children in 1996 speaks for itself. Among the different kinds of abuse, child pornography ranks high. The scope of the problem is much larger than anyone had anticipated, and is growing so exponentially as to be impossible to track. The number of Internet users is expected to more than double in 1999 to reach 320 million. The number of Internet users is expected to be more than 720 million worldwide by 2005.