Child abuser arrested on NCMEC info
A 21-year-old youth abused a 10-year-old child in Barishal and videotaped the incident on his cellphone. Google provided the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) with this information. NCMEC then contacted the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the police. Later CID’s cyber investigation and operation division traced the youth and arrested him.
Based in the USA, the NCMEC works to prevent sexual abuse of children, end child pornography, ensure child rights and related issues. US-registered companies such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft inform NCMEC if children are used for sexual purposes, sexually abused, etc, on their networks. CID joined hand with NCMEC in December last year. Since then, it has been investigating according to the data provided by NCMEC.
Special superintendent of police at CID, Md Rezaul Masud, told Prothom Alo that companies like Facebook, Google and Microsoft receive notifications if any image or video related to child abuse and child pornography is added to any electronic device connected to internet. Then NCMEC is informed of the matter. With the detailed information provided by them (NCMEC) on any incident, they can detect the criminal. The main difficulty while conducting operation is that is the family of the victim doesn’t want to believe it. They are shocked when they see the photo or video of the abuse. But they don’t want to file case against the perpetrator in fear of public humiliation.
The incident of child abuse in Barishal took place one and a half years ago. The police arrested the youth involved with the incident from the Banani in the capital city Dhaka on 12 January by comparing images and other information. He is from Kotalipara of Gopalganj and works as a labourer in Banani. He abused the child when he visited his sister’s house. And the victim is a child of a farmer.
During interrogations, the youth admitted abusing the child. He also gave a confessional statement at the court. But family of the child victim did not agree to file a case. The sub-inspector of CID then became plaintiff in the case. During interrogation, the youth admitted abusing at least five male children. He, too, became a victim of abuse during his childhood.
Last year, an 11-year-old girl was sexually abused by her aunt and uncle in the capital’s Turag area. She came to visit their house. At night when she was asleep, her engineer uncle sexually abused her while her physician aunt recorded the video. The couple kept the video on their cellphones. NCMEC provided Google with the video along with the IMEI number of the couple’s cellphone. CID arrested the couple on 29 December last year.
During interrogations, the couple said they smoked hashish ('ganja') on the day of the incident for sexual experience.
CID’s additional superintendent of police Mahmudul Islam Talukdar told Prothom Alo, the father of the child lodged a case over the incident. Since the accused are his (father’s) sister and brother-in-law, they now want to withdraw the lawsuit. The mother of the child doesn’t want the case be continued either. They think the couple has got their punishment since the later were arrested and sent to jail.
According to the NCMEC, Bangladesh ranks fifth in the world in making children work for pornographic content, taking pictures and videos of them being sexually abused and sharing this content. Bangladesh's IP (Internet Protocol) address has been used as many as 556,642 times to share child pornography.
CID’s investigating officers said the NCMEC has already provided them with the reports on several thousand instances. Most of them are on sharing child pornography internationally. The CID selected 54 reports after verifying the information. Initially, they have begun to work on five reports. Three of these incidents have been found to be true related to child abuse. Three people have already been arrested in two incidents. In both incidents, children have been abused by their relatives.
Regarding the family’s reluctance over filing lawsuit, child protection specialist of UNICEF, Shabnaaz Zahereen said it’s true that families don’t want to file a case fearing public humiliation. Even if a case is filed, they also suffer due to the lengthy trial procedures.
* This report appeared in the print and the online editions of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Hasanul Banna