Madam, - I am astounded at some of the views put forward in Vincent Browne's column of August 11th.
Mr Browne begins by informing his reader that he received an unsolicited e-mail from a child pornography site, offering him a vast array of images to buy. This commercial enterprise quite rightly offended him and he wonders why these sites cannot be filtered out by the service provider.
He goes on to say that if payment is a prerequisite to entry to the site "then clearly these are commercial enterprises involving the exploitation of children". These "commercial child pornography sites" should be required by law to be filtered out. Up to this point Mr. Browne and I are in agreement.
Then he drops his bombshell. He states that acquiring child pornography when no payment is involved causes no harm. Causes no harm to whom? Does he believe that the child abused in such pornography suffers no harm simply because no money has changed hands? Is he suggesting that money is the only harmful element of child pornography?
Does he think that these abused children give their services of their own free will? By removing the money from the transaction does that cancel any harm caused to the child?
Mr Browne then proceeds to question the demonising of people who pay for child pornography or who abuse children directly. He writes that most of us "normal people" are capable of evil but would draw the line at child abuse; but those who find such abuse "erotic" are ill. His use of the words evil, erotic and ill are ambiguous to say the least.
So normal people can commit evil acts but paedophiles are ill and deserve our sympathy or pity? Mr Browne, you are wrong! No matter what sort of ambiguous terms you cloak it in, sexual abuse is about power and control, not eroticism.
Mr Browne concludes this ill-conceived article by saying that we mustn't allow the fact that Roger Casement was probably a paedophile to cloud his achievement in exposing cruelty and abuse in Africa and the Amazon. I wonder if Casement ever indulged his paedophilic urges while visiting these places? Speaking as a father, no amount of good work for good causes would ever endear a paedophile to me.
This article did not deserve space in your newspaper. I am horrified that a supposedly well educated man could hold and voice such uneducated views. - Yours, etc.,
GERARD COFFEY, Monread Lawns, Naas, Co Kildare.
Madam, - I share Vincent Browne's concern regarding the difficulty in effectively protecting children from sexual abuse by adults (Opinion, August 11th). However given his discussion of the alarming prevalence of this abuse alongside his concerns about unsolicited e-mails offering child pornography, how can he argue against criminalising the viewing of free images?
Illegal exploitation occurs when a child's image is made available for use by an adult to experience arousal and masturbate, and those who use such images are complicit in the exploitation whether or not the images are paid for.
Mr Browne's claim as to the harmlessness of pornography is also problematic; there is clearly extensive use of pornography in our society and a further examination of the possible links with the abuse statistics that horrify us is warranted. - Yours etc.,
Dr JANE EDWARDS, Ballina, Co Tipperary.