I spent six years (2000-2005) as the first, part-time, independent Chair of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), so I continue to follow its good work with great interest.

When the IWF was first created in 1996, 18% of the child abuse images that were identified were found to be hosted in the UK. Last year, that figure was down to 0.4%. The organisation has just reported statistics for the first six months of 2006 and the figure is now down to 0.2%, effectively zero.

However,the United States has always been a major source of the child abuse images reported to the IWF and, for the six months January-June 2006, it accounted for 51.1% of all the illegal images (compared to 40% in 2005). If one looks only at commercial child abuse content (that is, paid for material), the figure rises to 57.8%.

This is a country that is so socially conservative that a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ by Janet Jackson resulted in the largest fine in the history of the Federal Communications Commission. Yet, year after year, the country is seen to be hosting the largest amount of the vile images that show the abuse of children and babies. When is effective action going to be taken?