Sweetie sting by Dutch activists catches 100 Indian child sex predators

The top country of origin for the adults identified was the United States with 254,followed by Britain.

Enlisting the help of a computer-generated 10-year-old Philippine girl,Dutch childrens rights activists turned online sex predators into their prey. Out of the 1,000 internet users who were found to be sex predators,over a 100 were Indians.

In an online sting operated from an anonymous warehouse office in an Amsterdam industrial park,activists from Terre des Hommes set out to gauge the scale of a fast-growing Internet phenomenon the Netherlands-based group calls webcam child sex tourism.

The result was shocking,the groups director of projects,Has Guyt told The Associated Press on Monday at the tiny Amsterdam office where Terre des Hommes used the 3D digital animated girl they dubbed Sweetie to unmask 1,000 Internet users they say wanted to pay to watch a child engage in sex acts via webcam.

The top country of origin for the adults identified was the United States with 254,followed by Britain with 110 and India with 103.

If we dont intervene soon,this sinister phenomenon will totally run out of control, Guyt said as he stood in front of a wall plastered with the pixelated faces of adults duped by Sweetie.

He said webcam sex with minors which usually involves men from wealthy Western countries paying children from impoverished countries for sex shows is still a cottage industry and needs to be stamped out now.

Its still not too late, Guyt said. Our worst scenario is that the same thing will happen with this as has happened with child pornography – that is now a multibillion dollar industry in the hands of criminal gangs.

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Terre des Hommes has posted a documentary about its 10-week investigation on YouTube and begun a petition aimed at pressing police and politicians to do more to halt such illegal sex shows.

We do not need more laws … present legislation is suitable and more than enough to cover these acts, Guyt said as he called for a novel approach to policing the problem. Terre des Hommes novel approach involved using Sweetie as an online disguise for a group of researchers who then chatted to potential clients online. We were swamped by men looking for sexual activities with us, Guyt said.

During a demonstration Monday,one of the researchers logged into a public chat room as Sweetie – identifying himself by her purported age,gender and country of origin. Seconds later,multiple pop-up dialogue boxes began appearing on his screen from people using pseudonyms and soliciting a girl who had clearly identified herself as 10 years old.

Guyt said Terre des Hommes,using basic research techniques,was able to identify 1,000 adults from 71 countries who solicited Sweetie. The group did not identify them,but passed the results of its investigation to Interpol.