Amanda Morgan, 29, happily showed off her daughter Callia on social media, sharing snaps of the young girl to allow her family and friends to stay up to date with her life.
The 29-year-old mom found the Callia’s photos had later been shared on ‘cute baby pages’ on Facebook and Instagram, but she dubbed those pages ‘innocent’ until the photos of her daughter ‘fell into the wrong hands’.
Amanda was alerted and horrified to the fact that her innocent daughter’s pictures were being used on the disturbing website by other parents who were trying to get the site closed down.
There were a total of three photos of two-year-old Callia on the site, taken when she was just six months old. The photos had been taken from Amanda’s public Instagram page and edited so the young girl appeared to have bright green eyes and be wearing mascara and lipstick.
“I cried uncontrollably for 45 minutes when I received that message. My partner couldn’t calm me down, I was sobbing and shaking.
I thought it was all my fault because I had this Instagram page,” she said. “There are three pictures of my child on that website, I haven’t dolled her up like that, I wouldn’t want to put my baby in make-up.”
Amanda then was forced to set up an account for the website in order to see which images were being used, and she found there were ‘child abuse images all over the website’.
“The usernames go from A-Z and each letter has thousands of users with pedophile usernames like ‘baby abuser’.
I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t want to look too deep because I didn’t want to scar myself,” she said. “Obviously mine’s bad with the comments but my baby’s fully dressed. These kids are getting abused and getting pictures taken of them by their own parents.
I just feel so sick and I feel sad for those babies.”
“As sickening as the comments were on Callia’s, they were mild. The other stuff that’s on there is even worse, I nearly threw up, I was literally retching like I was going to be sick. I’ve not been sleeping properly since I found out.”
Users of the Russian website, which is believed to have thousands of users globally, left comments on the photos of Callia to say they ‘couldn’t resist her’, with some saying that she was in a ‘good position’ when she was on all fours.
“When I got this message I thought ‘I shouldn’t have put any pictures on’ but then I thought ‘why shouldn’t I?” Amanda explained. “They make me happy, I love looking back on pictures from when she was little. I shouldn’t have that tarnished because of sickos in the world.”
The horrified mom decided to share her story as a warning to other parents, revealing she’s made her own accounts private since Callia’s pictures were taken and encouraging parents not to share pictures of their children.
“My child is covered, she’s wearing a long-sleeved jumper and a skirt in one of the pictures and you can’t see any of her skin,” she said, “I would say to parents to make sure they’re covered in any pictures they share, never naked or in the bath.
If you want to take those pictures just keep them to yourself, don’t put them anywhere for these creeps to get hold of.”
Amanda reported the site to police and has reported to Instagram of what happened, but in spite of her efforts, the site is still live.