A Dutch children's charity that set up a fake profile of a 10-year-old Filipina girl called "Sweetie" was able to catch over 1,000 sexual predators online who wanted to pay the "child" to remove her clothing and perform sexual acts, BBC News reports.
The charity, Terre des Hommes, played the role of "Sweetie" for 10 weeks in a warehouse on the outskirts of Amsterdam using a realistic-looking computer model of a little girl. They used their alter ego to enter video chat rooms where within seconds, dozens of men tried to coerce the child into taking off her clothes in exchange for money.
Over 20,000 men contacted the virtual child over this period, while 999 and one woman expressed a willingness to pay her in exchange for sexual acts and nudity via webcam. According to project director Hans Guyt, the charity did not "solicit anything unless it was offered," as their character simply appeared in the chats, where they waited until it was contacted.
Researchers used information from the predators' Skype and social media profiles to identify and catch the men and one woman from 71 countries, including 254 from the U.S., 110 from the UK and 103 from India. They believe that fake profiles can be a new way to police the net, as the predator and the victim in such incidents often "won't come forward," as Guyt said during a recent news conference.
Terre des Hommes has handed over their findings from the 10-week project to local authorities, as well as the technology they have developed while creating the computer model child.
"Our worst-case scenario is that the same will happen with this phenomenon as with child pornography, which is now a multi-billion industry in the hands of criminal gangs," the project's managing director, Albert Jaap van Santbrink, told BBC News.
Some, however, have reservations about using profiles like "Sweetie" in order to lure in potential predators online.
"We believe that criminal investigations using intrusive surveillance measures should be the exclusive responsibility of law enforcement agencies," spokesman Soren Pedersen told the Reuters, while Andy Baker, of the UK's National Crime Agency said that "tackling child sex abusers is best left to specialist law enforcement agencies," though he praised the project for raising awareness on "a global child sex abuse threat".
As for "Sweetie," "she" has done her job and will not longer be used by Terre des Hommes. According to the charity, webcam sex tourist can be defined as when "adults pay to direct and view live-streaming video footage of children in another country performing sexual acts in front of a webcam."
Click here to see photos of Dutch children's charity, Terre des Hommes, playing 10-year-old "Sweetie," their computer-generated alter ego.
