‘Sweetie’ Used To Expose Thousands of Pedophiles

Terre des Homme, an international child rights organization created the computer-generated 10-year-old girl as part of operation to expose an emerging form of abuse called “Webcam Child Sex Tourism” (WCST). WCST is defined as an adult paying a ‘to view a video live stream of a child performing sexual acts’. The 10-year-old girl from the Philippines named Sweetie helped the researchers identified 1,000 pedophiles during a 10-week period earlier this year.

Terre des Homme released their findings Monday in a 113-page report PDF. More than 20,000 people from 71 countries tried to solicit Sweetie’s services through 19 chat rooms in an act “almost universally outlawed in national criminal and penal codes,” according to the report. During the interactions, the researchers used online search and public databases to attempt to identify the perpetrators using the information they provided.

Of the 1,000 people allegedly identified by the researchers, 999 are male.

Of the 1,000 identified by the researchers, 254 were from the United States, followed by 110 from Britain.

The activist group also asked concerned individuals to sign an online petition.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the petition had reached 43,453 signatures toward its goal of 50,000.

[via CNet]