International | Paedophilia

Shedding light on the dark field

Understanding sexual attraction to children is essential if they are to be kept safe

IN AN office in Epsom in southern England, the phone rings. Calls come in from men who have been arrested on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children; those who are fathers will probably have been barred from seeing their children unsupervised until their trials. Or the caller may be a mother whose adolescent son has been charged with molesting a child; if he has siblings social workers may insist that the family is broken up. Some calls are from men desperate to talk to someone about their own sexual desire for children, and terrified that without help they may act on them.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Shedding light on the dark field”

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