Light A Million Candles to End Internet Child Abuse

Some estimates say that up to 20,000 children appear in pornographic images on the internet every day, on one or more of the over 100,000 child pornography sites. Though obviously legislation makes child porn illegal, policing the internet is hard (especially with the advent of technologies that can "de-age" legal actors to look like children).

A current petition aims to draw attention to this horrific industry by lighting a million (online) candles by December 2006. The website is worth a visit, if nothing else, to read some frightening statistics (internet child pornography is an industry several times bigger than online music sales, for example. Which we guess makes sense if people are downloading music for free, but still.) They've got almost 700,000 candles lit so far, so do your part: it only takes a few seconds, and the site will give you information on where to find out more about the problem, as well as where to make a donation of money or time to help end internet child pornography.

Because of some of the difficulties involved in policing child porn, police and internet service providers rely on the help of concerned citizens. To report a child pornography website, go here.