The 1980s

The 1980s enter the account through Jorgen Knudsen’s description of searching for children without protection. His recollection makes the decade a time of long, physical searches, set against the much easier access to potential candidates he associates with the Internet era.

Jorgen Knudsen’s searches

Jorgen tells Apollo Kagwa that, while in service, he could search for hours or even days before finding a candidate. During the 1980s, he drove everywhere in a white van. The people he sought were boys or girls without protection, babies no one was watching, and castoffs; he says he learned to recognize their look instantly.

A change in method

Jorgen contrasts those van journeys with the present, when, as he puts it, a man hardly needs to leave the house and needs only an Internet connection. The contrast marks a change in the means of finding candidates: prolonged searching on the road gives way to online access. His recollection supplies no further dates or locations for the searches.