The National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction

throughout several European countries to arrange, witness, and film the sexual abuse ofapproximately 20 underage girls. The “photographer” then sold the abusive images worldwidethrough his commercial web site. The initial exposure was estimated to have reached more than3,000 active traders in approximately 28 countries. He also offered his customers the opportunityto make special requests for videos, purchase the child-sized lingerie used in some of the videos,and, in one case, the opportunity to travel to Europe to photograph the underage girls with him. 21Another investigation revealed that offenders would congregate with like-minded people on theInternet and sometimes encourage each other to act out their fantasies and share proof. InOperation Hamlet, offenders abused their own children and made them available to othermembers of the group for the same purpose. 22 Another case revealed that some childpornography offenders are driven to abuse children because providing new images to their onlinecommunities gives them “status.” 23 Some communities have restricted memberships, allowingentry only to those who contribute an image not already possessed by the group. In someinstances, fathers have abused their own children, not out of any apparent sexual attraction totheir children, but because they wanted to reap the benefits of producing and introducing a newchild pornographic image into the market and their children were easily accessible targets. 24In one highly publicized investigation, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents intervieweda man who admitted molesting his daughter and videotaping the sometimes violent assaults. Thechild, who was 9-years-old when interviewed, said her father began assaulting her when she was5-years-old. She said he would assault her and immediately publish the assaults on the Internet.The man told agents that he began molesting his daughter because he needed "fresh" images toprovide others on the Internet before they would trade their own newest or least-circulatedimages with him. He described his desire for images he had not seen and said that, to get them,he was required to provide images others had not seen in trade.21See Appendix A, Operation Joint Hammer.22See Appendix A, Operation Hamlet. 23See Appendix C, Quayle et al. 24See Appendix C, Quayle (Fathers Victimizing Their Children.) 18