STOCKHOLM — A Swedish court on Tuesday convicted nearly two dozen women and one man for possessing child porn.
The case has received widespread attention because of the large number of women involved, 23 in total. The perpetrators in child porn cases are usually men.
ASACP Executive Director Tim Henning told XBIZ that it's not common for women to become involved in child pornography and when they are it is usually due to pressure from a male partner.
"This number of women involved due to a single man is historically unheard of," Henning said.
The women, aged between 38 and 70, were given suspended sentences and ordered to pay fines that range between $375 to almost $2,700.
The man in the case, 43-year-old Lars Skoglund, was convicted of aggravated child porn and sentenced to one year in prison. Officials say he distributed the child porn to the women, whom he met online through chat rooms and convinced them to accept files containing child porn.
"What I find most troubling is the apparent light sentence for the ring leader, Lars Skoglund," Henning said. "A one year prison sentence is a mere slap on the wrist considering the gravity of his crimes."
When Skoglund was arrested last year, he was in possession of 1,181 still shots and 40 films considered to be child pornography.
According to the court, the photographs and films depict children being raped by adults, in some cases with the children tied up.
The court found that "most of the women were psychologically unstable," and Skoglund had "taken advantage of the women's poor psychological states and longing for human contact."
The women all told the court they were not interested in child pornography.
"If Lars Skoglund had not led their conversations onto the subject of child sex, most of these women would probably never have come into contact with child pornography," the court said.
Nonetheless, the court said the women were responsible for their actions. The prosecutor had proven that the images had been sent to the women and the chats and emails proved that the women had wanted the images.