Hundreds of paedophiles ask virtual '10-year-old Filipina girl' for online sex in rights group sting
Group identifies paedophiles who contacted '10-year-old' generated by computer
A Dutch rights group said Monday it had identified over 1,000 paedophiles around the world by offering online sex with a computer-generated 10-year-old Filipino girl called Sweetie.
Terre des Hommes Netherlands has now handed over to police the identities of over 1,000 adults who were willing to pay children in developing countries for online sex, it said.
"They were ready to pay Sweetie for sexual acts in front of her webcam," the rights group's head Albert Jaap van Santbrink told journalists in The Hague.
The group said it wanted to raise the alarm about a largely unknown but quickly spreading new form of child exploitation, known as webcam child sex tourism, that has tens of thousands of victims in the Philippines alone.
Sweetie was created by the child rights group and deployed in internet chat rooms from a remote building in Amsterdam.
Within a 10-week period, over 20,000 predators approached Sweetie, asking for webcam sex performances. While they were chatting with the "girl", researchers gathered information about customers through social media.