Madrid - Detentions of paedophiles have gone up rapidly in Spain, where experts attribute the increase of such crimes to the opportunities the internet offers to child molesters or pornography consumers. The web not only provides an outlet for people with deep-rooted paedophiliac tendencies, but can also create a sexual attraction to children, expert Guillermo Canovas says.
Spanish media frequently report on police swoops on dozens of paedophiles, who are arrested simultaneously all over the country and even in other European countries.
More than a million child pornographic images and videos can be seized in just one swoop.
Over the past four years, police have held about 1,000 people on charges such as child abuse or possession of child pornography.
In 2007, 677 people were arrested, up from 84 in 2003.
"We get tips of about 1,500 cases every month," says Canovas, president of the association Protegeles which seeks to protect children from internet paedophiles.
The association has about 300 volunteer collaborators who help police by "chasing" paedophiles on the web.
Far from being a marginal loner, the typical paedophile is a socially integrated and successful person, usually a father himself, the daily El Pais reported.
"For a reason we do not know," child molesters tend to be better educated and to have a higher social status than men who rape adult women, Canovas said in a telephone interview with Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa.
Suspects detained in Spain have included people from all social classes, ranging from taxi drivers and construction workers to lawyers and physicians.
The victims are not always children photographed or filmed in developing countries or abused by sex tourists. They can be ordinary Spanish children targeted by family friends, teachers, monitors, babysitters, their mothers' employers or others.
Among 600 victims identified by the international police organization Interpol in Europe, 60 were Spanish children.
In one case, three paedophiles shot 23 films on the abuse of nine Spanish children aged between one and nine years.
The association Protegeles does not condemn the internet, which can be used for positive or negative ends. There is, however, "no doubt that the use of the internet by paedophiles has led to the increase of this type of crimes," Canovas says.
The web has broken the isolation and guilt of paedophiles, allowing them to get in touch, to justify and encourage each other, to give each other tips on where to find pornography or children, and even to campaign for their "rights" in some countries.
"Studies show that some paedophiles feel attracted to children from an early age, but the majority of them develop the tendency later on," Canovas explains. The internet can become a catalyst for people belonging to the latter group.
"Thousands of people are constantly looking for pornography on the web," Canovas says. "As their stimulation threshold rises, they feel the need for stronger and stronger material until their search leads them to child pornography."
Such material is offered by an estimated four million internet zones worldwide.
Not all paedophiles become pederasts, but "when someone carries a desire inside, he will tend to try to make it reality," psychology professor Miguel Angel Soria said.
The internet provides paedophiles with opportunities to seek contacts with minors under false identities, after which they may request compromising pictures, threaten to show these to the children's friends, and pressure their victims into meeting them.
Another factor increasing pederasty is sex tourism to Latin America and other developing regions. In 2001, for instance, more than 30,000 Spaniards travelled abroad to have sex with minors, the organization Save the Children estimated.
"Once a man has become accustomed to child pornography or had sex with a 13-year-old, his perception of children changes," Canovas says. "He begins to see them as sex objects instead of children."
The increase of paedophiles is accompanied by their average age going down. Some are minors themselves.
There is controversy over the extent to which paedophiles respond to therapy. In Spain, few therapists are specialized in the phenomenon, treatment is voluntary, and there is no follow-up on pederasts after they are released from prison, according to Canovas.
Relatively few paedophiles end up in prison in the first place. Laws which many experts regard as too lenient lead to paedophiles often being released or only serving short sentences.
Despite the large number of paedophiles detained in Spain, only about 30 are currently behind bars, according to figures quoted by El Pais.
