I feel a sense of helplessness seeing 6-month-old babies abused in child porn cases: CID officer

SINGAPORE – For the past three years, she has been investigating child abuse pornography cases, and has had to watch thousands of images and video clips of children being sexually abused.

Some victims were just babies as young as six months old, and so far all the victims have been children in other countries.

But as disturbing as the material is, Assistant Superintendent of Police Jane Chen has to view every image and clip to spot invaluable clues.

And in doing so, she and her Singapore Police Force colleagues have helped to save some children abroad from their abusers.

ASP Chen is a senior investigation officer (IO) at the specialised crime branch of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

She was speaking to the media at the Cyber Guardian Lab at the Police Cantonment Complex on Thursday. The lab, which will be launched on Monday, is a dedicated space for IOs to process child sexual abuse materials.

It is ASP Chen’s job to look through graphic images and videos involving child pornography.

But even seasoned officers like her are affected by what they watch.

ASP Chen said: “The images, the videos, the sounds of struggling and the cries of the children – these remain in my mind. There are some videos of the child not even being aware that they’re being sexually abused. They’re just doing whatever the perpetrator asks them to.”

The 37-year-old officer, who has been investigating such cases for around three years, said the experience affects her viscerally because some of these videos depict extremely violent sexual abuse.

She said: “I feel a sense of helplessness when I process these materials because the victims are children. Some of them are even toddlers and infants.”

Recalling the time when she came across footage of a six-month-old baby being sexually abused, she said: “When I see babies, it feels even worse. They’re infants who have just entered the world and they’re supposed to be protected. But in less than a year of life, they’ve been sexually tortured.”

To sift through thousands of images, investigators use various tools, including artificial intelligence (AI) software to process and filter for child sexual abuse material.

The case of Wong Ket Kok stood out for ASP Chen. He was jailed for 32 months in March 2022 after being caught with almost 47,000 electronic files containing such material.

The 55-year-old father of two downloaded child abuse pornography nearly daily over five years before he was arrested in 2020.