The scourge of child pornography has become a worldwide “epidemic” on the Internet, according to an organization that coordinates law enforcement agencies to fight it.  Even countries that were loath to admit the problem are now taking steps to deal with exploitation of children.

“Globally there’s not a country that can hide from this crime,” says Ian Quinn, the chairman of the Virtual Global Taskforce who adds that there has been an “explosion” in cases handled by US authorities.  The US Department of Homeland Security launched more than 4,000 child porn investigations last year.

In 2002, the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children confirmed 45,055 examples of obscene images of children found online, although some were duplicated.  But by 2013, that figure had grown to 23,881,197 images.

Japan's upper house has finally passed a bill that bans the possession of child sex images.  The new law jails offenders for up to a year and fines them more than A$10,000.  Japan is the last advanced democracy to pass a prohibition, and it covers photographic and video images – manga and anime (comics and cartoons) are not subject to the new law.