20,000 child porn images a week put on internet, says NSPCC

More than 20,000 images of child pornography are posted on the internet every week, according to a report published today. Distributing the pictures is a "commercial, globalised cottage industry", experts say.

Researchers who monitored the internet over six weeks for the NSPCC found that 140,000 child pornography images were posted. Twenty children were estimated to have been abused for the first time and more than 1,000 images of each child created.

The report is the first review of all available evidence on child pornography and its effect on the children who are abused.

Experts say children who know photographs and films have been made of them are haunted by feelings of shame and worried about being blackmailed. Christine Atkinson, policy adviser at the NSPCC, said: "Child pornography is instrumental in the sexual abuse of children within prostitution, sex rings and trafficking, within and outside the family.

"Sexual abuse is devastating and knowing that a permanent record of that abuse exists and is probably being circulated can only increase the victims' feelings of powerlessness, shame and humiliation.''

One abuse victim told researchers: "An ongoing concern all my life is that the pornography that was taken is going to turn up somewhere, and if it doesn't, I'd like to know who has it, or where has it gone to? When I was in my twenties I saw some of it ...my response when I saw the photographs was total horror."

Another study in the review found that younger children are being abused. In recent pictures, about half are between nine and 12 and the rest are younger. Researchers say that the number of boys used in pornography is also increasing.