One of the down­sides of the rapid tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ments in the 21st Cen­tu­ry is the in­crease in the con­sump­tion of on­line porn, with all its neg­a­tive psy­cho­log­i­cal, cog­ni­tive and sex­u­al ef­fects on in­di­vid­u­als and reper­cus­sions for the wider so­ci­ety.

These are is­sues that T&T has been grap­pling with for quite some time. Since 2014, this coun­try has been ranked on Google Trends for the high­est num­ber of in­ter­net search­es for pornog­ra­phy per capi­ta in the world.

So while dis­turb­ing, it did not come as a com­plete sur­prise that child rape videos, porno­graph­ic con­tent fea­tur­ing lo­cal fe­males and sig­nif­i­cant amounts of re­venge or non-con­sen­su­al pornog­ra­phy, are be­ing sold on the so­cial me­dia app Telegram for as much as $200.

A Guardian Me­dia in­ves­ti­ga­tion al­so high­light­ed cas­es where women’s pho­tos are be­ing tak­en from their so­cial me­dia pages and al­tered us­ing Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence soft­ware to ap­pear nude and then trad­ed as lo­cal porno­graph­ic con­tent.

This is not a mat­ter to be treat­ed light­ly and an im­me­di­ate ur­gent re­sponse is re­quired from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), as well as leg­is­la­tors who have been tardy in their ef­forts to strength­en laws against these dan­ger­ous prac­tices.

What makes the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­turb­ing is that the per­pe­tra­tors are able to op­er­ate with a high de­gree of anonymi­ty, en­abled by the weak, in­ef­fec­tive laws cur­rent­ly in place in this coun­try.

Ex­perts warn that In­ter­net pornog­ra­phy eas­i­ly pro­gress­es from habit to ad­dic­tion and it is hard­er to get the ad­dict in­to re­mis­sion than a co­caine ad­dict, with a high­er like­li­hood of re­laps­es.

Chil­dren are at par­tic­u­lar risk in this na­tion, where sex ed­u­ca­tion is lim­it­ed, not on­ly be­cause free and un­su­per­vised ac­cess to ex­plic­it con­tent on the in­ter­net can im­pact their psy­cho­sex­u­al de­vel­op­ment, but be­cause they are eas­i­ly preyed up­on by sex­u­al preda­tors.

Some in this na­tion ad­vo­cate for the free­dom to use pornog­ra­phy in healthy ways but the re­al­i­ty is that most of the con­tent be­ing trad­ed fea­tures hos­tile sex­ism, fre­quent vi­o­lence, gen­er­al de­hu­man­i­sa­tion and ob­jec­ti­fi­ca­tion.

And while it is re­as­sur­ing that the TTPS Cy­ber Crime and So­cial Me­dia and Child Pro­tec­tion Units have launched probes in­to the mat­ter, it is wor­ry­ing that nei­ther Joanne Archie, Man­ag­er of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, nor the head of the TTPS Spe­cial Vic­tims De­part­ment, Claire-Guy-Al­leyne, were aware of these nu­mer­ous on­line porn crimes un­til the GML in­ves­ti­ga­tion, al­though vic­tims in­di­cat­ed they re­port­ed the mat­ters.

Vic­tims have com­plained about be­ing turned away by po­lice, or told to file civ­il ac­tions against their abusers. Civ­il re­dress is pos­si­ble fol­low­ing the land­mark High Court de­ci­sion in Therese Ho v Lendl Sim­mons but re­venge pornog­ra­phy and oth­er on­line vi­o­la­tions re­main large­ly un­leg­is­lat­ed

That is be­cause a pro­posed amend­ment to the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act, laid in Par­lia­ment in 2022 when Faris Al-Rawi was at­tor­ney gen­er­al, has been sent to a Par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee for deep­er scruti­ny and is lan­guish­ing far down the leg­isla­tive agen­da.

The amend­ment seeks to crim­i­nalise voyeuris­tic be­hav­iour and the tak­ing and shar­ing of in­ti­mate im­ages with­out con­sent, mak­ing it pun­ish­able by a fine of $250,000 and two years’ im­pris­on­ment or $750,000 and five years’ im­pris­on­ment.

But that does not seem to be a pri­or­i­ty for T&T’s leg­is­la­tors, so vic­tims of these par­tic­u­lar­ly heinous crimes of on­line abuse and ex­ploita­tion, among them mi­nors, re­main at the mer­cy of preda­tors.