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UK Government Caught at “Child Protection” Conference with Porn Industry

By Terry Vanderheyden

BELFAST, November 16, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Northern Ireland Assemblyman is condemning a British government MP for attending a “child protection” conference at a Belfast hotel known for its purveyance of pay-per-view pornography, an industry that is often guilty of trafficking in women and underage girls.

 “I do not feel that the Pay-per-View industry has any contribution to make to the fight against child pornography,” emphasized Northern Ireland Assemblyman, Dr. Esmond Birnie, a leading opponent of the normalization of pornography in the British Isles. “I therefore feel it is ironic that Paul Goggins MP, UK Parliamentary Under Secretary of State and Chairman of the Home Secretary’s Taskforce on Child Protection, has apparently decided to attend the conference at the Hilton Hotel Belfast. In my view the Home Office would also have been on safer ground using a hotel which was not itself connected to the trade in pornography,” he added.

Dr. Birnie added his criticism for a system that makes the child pornography industry viable – credit cards. “The vile and despicable trade in involuntary and criminal pornography which affects adults to the same extent it abuses children, is only possible because of transaction processing and other billing mechanisms,” Dr. Birnie explained.

VISA is one of the participants at the conference – a key player in the dissemination of child pornography world-wide. The ability to use credit cards to purchase child pornography has made it easier than ever to obtain. “The fact that child pornography can be purchased using a credit card . . . is causing an exploding global problem and an immeasurable impact on the sexual exploitation of children,” said Ernie Allen, President and CEO, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), as reported by LifeSiteNews.com last week, HYPERLINK "http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/nov/05110905.html"http://www.lifesite.net/ ldn/2005/nov/05110905.html

The sex trade experience of the Canadian government has illustrated the difficulties of distinguishing juveniles from adults. Pornography web-sites in Eastern Europe exploit juveniles with the same lack of discrimination as traffickers, strip-club agents, brothels and massage parlours.

According to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, Regpay Co. Inc., based in Belarus, processed $3 million dollars in subscription fees to Web sites hosting child pornography. A US company “knowingly participated in the criminal activity by providing credit-card processing services to Regpay,” according to a Concerned Women for America account. “Federal officials seized $800,000 from Connections USA, proceeds they believe are from child pornography sales.” In 2003, the FBI estimated that Regpay and Connections USA processed 270,000 credit card transactions on Visa and MasterCard alone.

“We’ve put Visa and MasterCard on notice,” said Jan LaRue, CWA’s chief counsel, “that they are also facilitating and profiting from purchases of adult hard-core pornography that is prosecutable as obscenity. We’ve sent them stacks of printouts from hard-core Web sites that feature their company logos.”

“They are also on notice that third-party processors like Regpay and Connections USA are passing through to them the charges from customers for purchases of hard-core porn. We’ve also brought this to the attention of [former] Attorney General Ashcroft.”

“When the credit card companies have knowledge that their products are being used in this way, they are as liable as the porn Web sites for violating federal obscenity laws. Their alleged cooperation in child pornography investigations can’t cover for knowingly profiting from other illegal material transactions,” LaRue said.

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Child Porn Among Fastest Growing Internet Businesses
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/nov/05110905.html
Belfast Hilton Hotels Running Hard-Core Porn Endangering Staff
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/sep/05092902.html

View the conference brochure:
http://www.morrowcommunications.co.uk/vgt/prog.htm

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