Japan cited as child porn host in British report

Around 5% of the child pornography websites discovered by a British Internet watchdog over a 10-year period were hosted in Japan, investigators said Tuesday. The Internet Watch Foundation said it had found more than 31,000 websites worldwide containing illegal images of child abuse. Around 51% were hosted in the United States and 20% in Russia.

Sarah Robertson, IWF press officer, said that several Japanese networks were found to be unwittingly hosting noncommercial websites containing child porn. "The main problem is people sharing and swapping images via message boards. They are not necessarily Japanese children in the pictures, or Japanese people submitting the material," she said.