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The shocking facts about child pornography

By Tammi Pitzen, Executive Director of the Children's Advocacy Center

When most people think about child sexual abuse, they think of those children in which an adult has touched a child in an inappropriate way. But there are also non-touching forms of sexual abuse.

In the age of fast moving technology, there are new victims who can be vulnerable to re-victimization over and over for the rest of their lives.

These are the children exploited by their perpetrator taking pornographic pictures of them and circulating them through the internet. There is no way to know exactly how many offenders these victims have. Many times these children are not aware that pictures of their abuse are being taken. There are thousands of pictures of unidentified children.

And technically every time someone views a pornographic picture of a child, it is abusive.

How much of a problem is it really? Here it is by the numbers:

(Sources: WashingtonTimes, CNBC, Good, ThePinkCross.org, MSNBC, Enough.org, NationalCoal)

How much of a problem do YOU think it really is?

Are your children on the internet? Have they ever been solicited sexually while online?

Have you asked them?