Cork unit treating children who have been filmed for child porn

A CORK sexual assault unit is treating young children who have been filmed for the child porn industry.

Social workers have said that victims are being treated at the child sexual abuse assessment unit at St Finbarr’s Hospital, although it is believed that a very small number are involved

Mary Crilly, director of the Sexual Violence Centre in the city, said yesterday that it was unusual, but not rare, for children to be filmed by adults.

“It is not unusual for (child sex) offenders to show porn films to children in an attempt to make them think it is normal behaviour. They then film their victims. You have to get into the mind of how cunning and manipulative these people are,” said Ms Crilly.

She made her comments following a conference at UCC which focused on child protection. Fiachra Shúilleabháin, a qualified social worker in child protection, described the filming of young children for the porn industry as “a very worrying dynamic entering the field,” he said.

“Child pornography is a global issue and is unfortunately a new sinister element to the whole area of child protection. A worrying thing about child pornography is once something is put up on the internet it is very hard to take it down,” said Mr Shúilleabháin. He said that social workers found out about incidents of child abuse from the gardaí or eliciting the information themselves through careful dialogue with victims.

Social workers are struggling to cope with a major caseload in the Cork and Kerry region where they are dealing with up to 76 “at-risk” children at any one time. The conference heard that these large caseloads are dramatically affecting the quality of support being offered to families. Kenneth Burns, of the social work development unit at University College Cork, has conducted research on the regional caseload figures, which are far higher than the international average.

He said the maximum number of at-risk children who would come under the care of a social worker in Britain would be 10-15. As a result of the high Cork and Kerry caseloads, services are being spread too thinly and children are missing out on vital supports such as counselling.

He interviewed 44 frontline staff in five child protection welfare teams in the HSE South area between April 2006 and February 2007. Mr Burns found high levels of frustration about the lack of resources and an extremely heavy workload.

He said while there was traditionally a high staff turnover in the sector, this seems to have stabilised in recent years.

This could, he added, be attributed to a recruitment embargo imposed by the HSE which has resulted in social workers being afraid to leave the sector for fear of not getting back in.