Anti-Exploitation Advocates Warn of Growing Push to Normalize Pedophilia

Irina Spirid/Shutterstock

The movement to normalize pedophilia and selling sex as promoted in some academic circles is having a real-world impact on efforts to deal with child trafficking, say two leading Canadian anti-human trafficking advocates.

In an interview with The Epoch Times, Cathy Peters, a former inner city high school teacher, said academics are one of the “weak links” in the national fight against human trafficking. The author of “Child Sex Trafficking in Canada and How to Stop It” says part of the inspiration for her 264-page book was to offer a well-cited rebuttal.

“I thought there needs to be a book out there that counters what academics are promoting, and what they’re telling me is that they are, at some point, wanting to embrace or normalize pedophilia,” Ms.Peters said.

“When I heard it years ago, I didn’t even believe it. I thought there’s no way—there’s no way they could be talking this way. But the more academics that are reaching out to me, the more they are telling me this.”

One example, from 2021, is Allyn Walker, then a professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion University in Virginia, who published “A Long, Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity” that year. The book description on Amazon says it’s wrong to assume that minor-attracted persons (MAPs), “persons who are preferentially attracted to minors—often referred to as ‘pedophiles’—are necessarily also predators and sex offenders.”

“Navigating guilt, shame, and fear, this universally maligned group demonstrates remarkable resilience and commitment to living without offending and to supporting and educating others,” says the description.

A 2021 article in the UK’s Daily Mail referred to an interview the professor had, following the book’s publication, with a child advocacy group that promoted the use of childlike sex dolls for pedophiles.

The article also quoted the professor, who is transgender, as having later clarified that “when we’re talking about non-offending MAPs, these are people who have an attraction they didn’t ask for.”

The Daily Mail also quoted from the professor’s Ph.D. thesis stating, “Among some groups of predisposed individuals, easy access to a wide variety of engrossing and high-quality child pornography could serve as a substitute for involvement with actual victims.”

Child pornography is illegal in Canada and the United States. In 2002, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection launched Cybertip.ca, a tipline to report the online sexual abuse of children. By September 2022, 20 years later, the public had made 377,000 reports using the line.

The centre’s Project Arachnid, a tool for disrupting child sexual abuse material (CSAM), has removed seven million images and videos of CSAM from over 1,000 electronic service providers spanning nearly 100 countries since its launch in 2017. In 2021 alone, the centre managed more than 3,000 requests for support from survivors, youth, and caregivers.

Professor Walker’s views did not survive a public outcry. A petition signed by over 16,500 people led the professor to go on leave in 2021 and then step down at the end of the Spring 2022 semester, thereafter becoming a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University’s Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse in Baltimore, Maryland, in May 2022.

Public expressions of support for minor-attracted persons by Canadian academics are harder to find. But Ms. Peters, who makes presentations on child sexual exploitation to police forces, politicians, health regions, and the public, says academics have told her that a trend to reduce stigma over sexual attraction to minors is well underway in post-secondary education.

“They’re encountering this idea at their institutions. They don’t feel they can speak up. They feel they are so outnumbered, they’re scared to say anything,” she said.

‘Not Normal’

The Joy Smith Foundation was formed in 2011 to fight human trafficking. The former Winnipeg MP for whom the foundation is named, told The Epoch Times that the normalization of adult-child sex is on her radar.

“Pedophiles are really mentally ill people who are very dangerous to young children,” Ms. Smith said.

Ms. Smith, who was an MLA from 1999 to 2003 and an MP from 2004 to 2015, introduced three pieces of legislation to counter human trafficking, including the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, 2014. This bill made legal penalties for human traffickers, pimps, and sex buyers, but not for those selling sex, as they are usually victims of exploitation.

The 1990 film “Pretty Woman” glorified prostitution, and Ms. Smith says such unreal depictions continue to fill screens.

“It’s really embellished on media and the TV and it trains the young kids that, ‘Oh, well, if somebody does this to me, it’s not so bad.’ But it’s very bad, and it affects the the child immensely,” she said.

“The public as a whole, because of the media, the TV shows, everything else, accepts a lot about sexual exploitation and things like that, because they watch the show and they’re influenced by it.”

At a Feb. 11, 2022, hearing, Ms. Peters told Parliament’s Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights that prostitution was “modern-day slavery.” She said “95 percent of those involved in prostitution want to leave. It is not a choice or a job,” adding that the “vast majority of prostituted persons are pimped or trafficked,” typically by organized crime.

She also noted that 13 was the average age of recruitment, with “90 percent of the luring, grooming, buying, and selling” done online on social media platforms, and that “54 percent of the sex trade is indigenous.”

Ms. Peters told The Epoch Times she is wary of “woke” ideologies in law societies, a soft-on-crime approach by governments, drug decrimalization, and opponents of current laws. She also called the media a “weak link” in defending the exploited.

“Generally, mainstream media is pro-sex industry. They will talk about sex work. The second I see the words ‘sex work,’ I’m suspicious. It’s a red flag for me, because it’s not work. How is this work? It is total exploitation,” she said.

“Media … will report from so-called sex workers all the time, and say how unfair our federal laws are, especially the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act. They want to get rid of that law, and media will report it happily.”