These numbers, however, are ruthless: almost 7 million one hundred thousand photos reported last year, almost double if compared with 2018 when the counter stopped at 3.053.317 (There were around 2 million in 2017). Videos have remained more or less the same (992,300 against 1,123,793 from 2018), chats have increased (323 against 234) and the compressed folders 325.

The data from the period 2002-2019 reported by the World Observatory against Pedophilia, shows that child abuse is an expanding crime. Its data is verified, checked and reported to the competent Police forces and server providers. In 17 years 61,525 protocols were sent, with174,731 links reported.

Since 2008 social networks have increased the available space for pedophiles: 8,397 reports were counted during 17 years, while the Deep Web continues to grow. The Deep Web is the dark side of the net, like the one of the moon everyone knows it is there, but no one has ever seen it.

In 7 years, since 2012 there have been 47,421 reports. It is an impressive and increasing number, because it allows to move easily, something that the Public Net does not. It is a jungle where one can operate and act in total freedom, where even for the Police it is difficult to intervene. Taking action is often too late with respect to the technology used by the pedophiles. An example is timed links.

A collection with photos or videos of abuses is located on a certain address and will be active for only 24 hours. That is too short to have the time to intervene.

Since 2014, even the horror picture has become more accurate. The World Observatory against Pedophilia office found 16,003,014  divulged photos, 3,469,196 divulged videos, 12,610 mega storages and 1,022 pedophile chats divulged.

Beside the figures other findings make this crime more hideous. According to the 2018 Report cyber-pedophiles preferably choose photos and videos of children between 8 and 12 years old, because they are solitary and inexperienced surfers; follow those between 3 and 7 but unfortunately there is no shortage of children from 0 to 2 years.

The problem behind the images is that the abuse of minors involved in the videos has already occurred. They are not consenting adults, but minors, pre-pubertal, children and unfortunately also infants with a few days of life. There is obviously a difference between the abuses perpetrated against a 6-7 year old girl or a 16-17 year old girl, although both minors, even though it is always violence and therefore must be condemned.

The social platforms used by children and minors to exchange messages, photos, selfies and short videos where they sing or dance are: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Telegram and the new Tik Tok.

In quarantine, the profiles of groups or people who lure minors on social platforms have increased

exponentially, over 40%. Unfortunately there is no recognizable 'standard' type of pedophile, he/she is a transversal figure.

In an eroticized society the tendency is to eroticize minors too. Behind the semblance of a 'normal' life - family, wife, children, sports, work - anyone could be a sexual predator of children. There is no distinction between age, cultural level, economic wealth and not even sex;  women too abuse.

The pedophile is a person who wants to create a perverse relationship with a boy or girl and who believes that it is a right thing to do, absolutely natural, while it is always a form of serious submission of the minor to the perverse wishes of an adult. There is no freedom for the ensnared and abused children. This is why in the law on child pornography, pedophilia is defined among the new forms of slavery. Children are not consenting, they do not want to be abused. It is important to reiterate it, because many lobbies of pedophiles in the world try to undermine this aspect, calling sexual relations between an adult and a child the last frontier of so-called free love. The search to present pedophilia as an acceptable sexual attraction, or to challenge the notions of sexual abuse set its roots during the sexual revolution, mainly in the years 1970-1980, never disappeared. Last year in Amsterdam a group of pedophiles wanted an authorized demonstration presenting themselves as an oppressed minority because of their sexual orientation (See The pedophilia apology in French).

But it is about freedom only of the adult who is actually a child rapist (See more in this Italian article).

Latest research reveals that women too sexually abuse children in increasing number. In 1998, a study for the Home Office in the UK indicated that less than 5% of child sex offences were committed by women, even though the author acknowledged the number may be lower than the reality. Between 2005 and 2006, 2,142 children reported they had been sexually victimized by a female. What was striking was the report of Bill Jenkins whose childhood was defined by the sexual and physical abuse meted out by his foster mother – but all the signs of his distress were ignored. In 2009, the BBC reported, Claims of sex abuse by women grow in the number.

A 2015 study on abuses reported to child protective services in the United States during 2010 concluded that more than 20% of child sexual abuse cases reviewed involved a primary female perpetrator.

In 2012, Child Protective Services estimated that 686,000 children were victims of maltreatment in the United States, and over 80% of the perpetrators of these crimes were the children’s parents. Of this number, 88% were biological parents, not step - or adopted as many have been taught to believe.

In addition, 45% of the total number of perpetrators were men, and 54% women. Women who sexually abuse children are criminals, not seductive temptresses. All we are quick to acknowledge that when a man commits sexual abuse against a child or teenager, he has engaged in a criminal act.

Not so with women. Often, women who commit sexual abuse against boys, especially teenage boys, are cast as the older, more experienced Mrs. Robinson (personifying an older woman pursuing a younger boy - 1967 movie The Graduate)or Stifler’s mom - who are showing these lucky boys their sexual ropes and helping them come of age and shed their sexual inexperience. Unfortunately, this older-woman-as-seductress trope is so ingrained in our culture that only recently have we begun to dismantle it (See 5 Reasons Why Feminism Needs to Address Child Abuse).