Japan child porn victims increasing amid rising smartphone use
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Tokyo - The number of victims of child pornography in Japan jumped 22 per cent from a year earlier to 646 in 2013, the highest since records started in 2000, the National Police Agency said Thursday.
"Behind the increase in the number of such victims is the growing use of smartphones and other mobile devices that easily connect to the internet," an agency official was quoted by Jiji Press as saying.
About 33 per cent of the victims, or 211 children, used smartphones to communicate with perpetrators. The figure grew 3.9-fold from 2012.
Around 42 per cent of victims, or 270 children, were coerced into taking photos or videos of themselves naked and emailing the data.
Twenty of the 270 victims were primary school students, the agency said.
"It is difficult to remove photos and images once they are posted on the internet, but the risk is not fully understood," the official said.
The number of child porn cases handled by Japanese police rose to a record 1,644 in 2013 from 1,596 in the previous year, the agency said.
DPA
