Among the alarming increase in child pornography cases to strike Japan in 2009 are a number of particularly disturbing incidents: Child porn made and sold by the children's own mothers.

In many cases, mothers or other relatives agreed to sell nude photographs of their children to men they met on Internet underwear shops. So far this year, at least 12 guardians have been arrested on child porn suspicions related to their own children. Once the images are distributed on the Internet, it is virtually impossible to recover them, and the National Police Agency is now cooperating with other branches of government on formulating preventative policies.

"As a mother, you committed a deed as grievous as sexual abuse against your own child, whom you are bound to protect with your very life," a Sendai District Court judge declared at the conclusion of one such case. "And yet, you gave a reason as preposterous as money for your actions. From now on, pour your love into raising your child," the judge concluded, sentencing the 23-year-old mother to one year in prison, suspended for three years.

A woman from Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, had sent her a digital camera to take nude photos and videos of her 2-year-old daughter, promising the mother "more than 1,000 yen per picture." The mother sent the images via e-mail. According to a source with the investigation, the mother received about 100,000 yen in total, while the woman from Sakai sold the images to an amateur child porn collector.

According to a senior officer, police began seeing such cases for the first time in 2009, with as many as nine mothers as well as two fathers and one sister-in-law arrested in relation to child pornography. Most of the buyers of such material exposed so far are male amateur collectors, who meet the willing parents or relatives through Internet underwear shopping sites.

There has also been once case of a couple auctioning off flash drives full of pictures of their daughter over the Internet. The husband and wife, aged 33 and 28, were arrested for taking pictures of their 7-year-old daughter in her underwear, putting the images on two flash memory sticks and listing them on an auction site, finally sending the sticks to a customer in Aichi Prefecture for 15,000 yen.

"We were able to make some easy money. We were able to sell about 900,000 yen-worth (of pictures) from February to September," the couple apparently admitted.

According to the National Police Agency, 412 people were arrested on child porn charges involving 338 children in 2008, and the total looks set to climb in 2009.

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