Children with mobile phones that access the internet can use them in their bedrooms, classrooms or toilets or even in the presence of their parents, to view and listen to sounds of sexually explicit images, without anybody noticing what is going on.

Some of these images is feared, might come from adults, particularly paedophiles - a person who is sexually interested in children - who are going to take advantage of this new phenomenon to send sexual images to children they are stalking.

Already, parents in the United States and European countries who have bought children phones are now worried that erotic images or content accessed from pornographic sites on the internet can easily reach the minors.

Although the phenomenon is creating uneasiness in developed countries, locally, some mobile operators have started providing similar services that enable their customers to use internet or send video clips or images on their mobile phones.

Safaricom's Wireless Application Protocol facility enables those subscribing to the services to browse the internet using their mobiles.

At the same time, its Multimedia Messaging Services makes its possible for someone to send or receive video clips or any other images.

The company's Chief Commercial Officer, Peter Arina, however says they are not aware “of our messaging services being used for sending or receiving offensive picture materials.”

The company, he adds, offers picture messaging services only to postpaid subscribers, who represent less than 2 percent of their total subscribers. The company has over three million subscribers.

But he further notes that it is “technically not possible to censor this service.”

Meaning the company has no control over what internet sites its customers visit or the images they send to their friends or colleagues using their mobiles.

“It is true customers of local mobile phone companies can now access sites on the internet that carry pornographic materials, and sometimes there is nothing these companies can do,” says an employee of one of the leading internet service providers.

Operators in other countries who have enabled their customers to use internet on their mobile phones too say they cannot monitor or control internet sites they visit, lest they be accused of infringing on individuals privacy.

Even so, both local mobile phone and internet service providers say the names used for sites with pornographic materials are very unsuspecting that is so difficult for them to know what to block.

At the moment, those using Safaricom picture messaging services cannot receive an image from someone in the developed country as the service is restricted to the company's postpaid subscribers only.

Still, Arina cautions that it is illegal in Kenya to possess or deal in offensive materials and one is liable to prosecution.

The only problem is the current law on pornography relates only with publications and video tapes and says nothing about the internet.

Lawyers say this may make it tricky to charge people who browse pornographic sites on the internet.

On the other hand, those behind pornographic sites and other entrepreneurs are not deterred by these legal explainations.

They are actively opening up new sites as they rush to cash-in on the over four million mobile subscribers in the country.

New names and sites are said to spring up faster than they have done so in the past, particularly in America, Asia and Europe.

Those interested in these sites, can easily access them using their cell-phones and browse pornographic websites, view the images, and even manage to send them to their friends, relatives or even children.

In America, frightened by such possibilities and realities, the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, a Christian non-profit group, this month met a number of wireless companies to voice their concern about the matter.

According to the International Herald Tribune , an American publication, the parents expressed concerns that phones could provide minors with all-too-easy access to inappropriate material.

“The internet hit us blindsided. Now we are attempting to stay ahead of the curve,” Jack Samad, a senior vice-president for the group, is quoted in the publication expressing the concerns of his fellow parents.

Samad and other parents have moved to press cell phone carriers to give them the ability to block their children from accessing sites with porno images and information.

Of concern to them is that internet related sex crimes, as reported by Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), were over 1,300 between 1996 and 2001.

They now fear that the fast growing industry will engulf them if action is not taken now.

At the moment, in Asia and Europe, consumers are already spending billions of Kenya shillings every year on phone-based pornography, rivalling what is spend on ring tones and video games.

Yankee Group, an American company, estimates that sales of pornography for phones will reach the Sh 14 billion mark in the next four years.

In Europe, it is estimated that people are spending more than Sh 7.4 billion a year to view both soft and hand-core pornographic images.

While Xobile, a pornographic site run by Mobile Operations based in North Carolina, United States, is getting 6,000 new customers every month, who pay about Sh 32 to see just a two minute pornographic video clip.

Those who exploit the service, which started in April this year, use their credit cards so that they can visit the sites without problems.

Other mobile phone service operators are also realising that more and more people who use the internet on their cell-phones are now demanding pornographic information, than any other category of information such as education, news or general knowledge.

Due to this demand, operators who have for sometime avoided giving pornographic videos as part of their services might just think otherwise as the business become more lucrative.

And this might come sooner than later. A number of mobile operators are already arguing that giving consumers the right to decide what to watch or read is the way to go.

In response to this, cellular carriers in developed countries which sell ring tones or video games, have or are drafting ratings for mobile content.

Such ratings, which are now used in videos or movies, will show what is for adult entertainment only, but leaving it to the discretion of consumers to decide what to see and read.

Harvey Kaplan, director of mobile operations company, in North Carolina has been quoted in the US media as saying the thirst for sex-related pornographic content is likely to increase the demand for mobile phones that can enable consumers to access internet.

This will require ratings and other safe guards to be put in place. Back in Kenya, parents will be looking upto to the regulators, Communication Commission of Kenya, to step in and control what goes on in this lucrative mobile phone industry.