A 21-year-old B.C. woman has been arrested on suspicion that she was downloading and sharing child pornography over social networking sites.
The young woman was arrested after a search of her home in the tiny northwestern community of Glen Vowell on Sept. 22, and charges of possession and distribution of child pornography are pending.
Sgt. Bev Csikos of the RCMP's Integrated Child Exploitation unit told ctvbc.ca that women aren't commonly accused of child pornography offences.
"But we are seeing women involved more frequently in these sort of cases," she added.
She's at a loss to explain the increase in female suspects.
"I don't know. I wish I knew," Csikos said. "It concerns me that anyone's involved, but it's certainly something that we need to understand better."
The latest female suspect was arrested after a tipster complained to American authorities that she was sharing a "large volume" of child pornography using social networking sites, Csikos said, although she declined to comment on which sites were being used.
"Everybody shares on social networking sites. It is a common place for sharing child pornography," she said, adding that strong privacy settings can allow the offending images to spread virtually undetected between networks of friends.
Indeed, the arrest follows a recent wave of suspects accused of sharing sexual images of children over sites like Facebook.
In an unconnected case, a 16-year-old boy was charged Wednesday with production and distribution of child pornography for allegedly taking photos of a suspected gang rape in Pitt Meadows and distributing the images using social networking sites.
In August, two B.C. men were arrested, along with nine others worldwide, in what police have described as a global child pornography ring that used Facebook to share material.
