Banks unite to fight child pornography

TAMARA NISSANKA

Seventeen banks have teamed up to eliminate child pornography on the internet. The project named "Banks' Campaign to Crush Child Pornography on the Internet" (B3CPI) was launched yesterday as a corporate social responsibility initiative of the banks.

The banks joining the project are Bank of Ceylon, Central Bank of Sri Lanka, DFCC, DFCC Vardhana, Hatton National Bank, HSBC, ICICI Bank, Indian Oversease Bank, National Savings Bank, Nations Trust Bank, PABC Bank, People's Bank, Sampath Bank, Seylan Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Standard Chartered Bank Pakistan and Union Bank.

Present at the event were the CEOs of these banks.

Addressing the gathering, Chairperson of the Protecting Environment and Children Everywhere (PEACE) Movement Maureen Seneviratne brought to light that child pornography primarily takes place in the environs of beach resorts, slums in Colombo, Kandy and Bandarawela and in the most rural areas of the country.

Children subject to sexual violence range from ages eight to 18 and are often from ultra poor families.

Paedophile tourists, brokers and proprietors of children are involved in the process of child trafficking and propagation of child pornographic photos and videos on the Internet. The young victims cannot be easily rehabilitated.

They often end up as anti-social individuals with sexually transmitted diseases and tendencies to violence, as a result of being abused also by drugs.

Explaining the technical process by which the banks would eliminate this multi-billion dollar trade on the internet, Chief Information Officer of Standard Chartered Bank; Yohan Dias-Abeyesinghe said that credit cards are used largely in this illegal industry.

First, the credit card information being used to purchase children online will be traced over the internet. Then, the merchant will be hot-listed, allowing the bank to freeze transactions of the merchant. In the case of foreign credit card issuing banks, such as; Visa, Master Card and American Express, the merchant will be tracked in a similar manner and the bank will terminate transactions of the offender.

PEACE, Seneviratne said, works with religious leaders, teachers and parents of villages to combat child abuse. "The Internet is very useful, but there is a very dark side to it" she concluded.