FOLEY ANNOUNCES BILL TO BAN SO-CALLED “CHILD MODELING” WEB SITES
--‘These web sites are nothing more than a fix for pedophiles,’ Foley said. --
WASHINGTON May 7
Congressman Mark Foley (FL-16), Co-Chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus, today announced he is introducing a bill to ban so-called online “child modeling” web sites.
“These web sites are nothing more than a fix for pedophiles,” Foley said. “They don’t sell products, they don’t sell services – all they serve are young children on a platter for America’s most depraved. These sites sell child erotica and they must be banned immediately.”
Foley, who helped introduce legislation last week reaffirming the 1996 ban on "virtual" child pornography, said "child modeling" web sites that exploit children as young as four, five and six years old, cause immense psychological damage to the children and also put them in physical danger when contact is made with the people who visit their sites.
Contact is made, Foley said, when pedophiles who pay to see photos and video clips of the children in sexually suggestive poses send the children provocative clothing and bathing suits to “model” and converse with them via email. In more extreme cases, “parties” have been held in hotel rooms where the pedophiles can meet the young children they have been paying to view online face to face.
Specifically, this legislation, that will be co-introduced by Rep. Nick Lampson (D-TX), will ban all web sites that charge fees to view models 16 years of age and under that do not promote products or services beyond the child. “If a child is modeling for Gap or Gucci, it’s legal. If the site is selling nothing else than the child via photos or video clips, it’s illegal,” Foley said.
The legislation will be addressed under Title 18 of the Criminal Code as well as the Fair Labor and Standards Act.
Copies of the legislation will be made available when the bill is introduced.
http://www.gop.gov/item-news.asp?N=20020507140831