Police in Sweden want to see a new law of "virtual rape" introduced following the investigation of several Swedish men suspected of having ordered live child rapes over the internet, reports newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. A majority of parliamentary parties are thought to be open to reviewing the law and sentences.
In mid-April, a 52-year-old-man from northern Skåne was sentenced to four and a half years of imprisonment by the Court of Appeal for paying poor Filipino women to rape children while he watched live on the internet. The SvD newspaper writes that it appears that the man instructed people on how he wanted them to molest different children. The sentence was the first of its kind and now Sweden's national police force is investigating three more cases.
Prosecutor Måns Björklund had claimed a 14 year sentence for 52-year-old, who was convicted of incitement to child rape, conspiracy to commit child rape and child pornography offenses.
Bjorn Sellström, head of the National Police Child Porn Investigation Unit believes that the punishment was too low, and does not think that the law has kept up with society, where different crimes are committed online.
"It is unfortunate that you can order the rape of children and it will be classed as not much more than a criminal conspiracy," said Bjorn Sellström, who wants a new criminal classification for the offence such as "virtual rape".
Morgan Johansson of the Social Democrat Party told the newspaper.
"I see before me a very unpleasant development in which people in the West can exploit people in poor parts of the world in a whole new way," he told SvD.
The paper has spoken to all eight parliamentary parties in Sweden and says that all but the Green Party is open to reviewing the current legislation. The Green Party's legal spokesperson Maria Ferm said they had not yet formed a position on the issue.
Children's rights organization ECPAT Secretary Lotta Persson is skeptical of current legislation.
"We would like to see a discussion about who is considered to be the perpetrator in cases like this. The abuse would probably not have occurred unless the Swedish man had ordered it. The phenomenon is new to the judiciary and does not fit in the current legislation," she said.
Two Swedish men, arrested in 2009, were jailed for life in 2011 for running a cybersex operation in the Philippines. The case involved naked women chatting and performing sexual acts in front of webcams for internet clients.
