By Stefano Gennarini, J.D. and Iulia-Elena Cazan, C-Fam.org, 2/8/24
NEW YORK, February 9 (C-Fam) The Biden administration, the European Union, and other Western countries have asked the General Assembly to decriminalize some forms of teenage child pornography and virtual child pornography. This in a new binding treaty on cybercrime.
However, more than thirty traditional countries opposed the draft of the treaty during negotiations last week.
The new treaty would replace the strict unified standard against child pornography used in international law with a flexible one that varies between countries. Western countries argued the new standard is necessary to protect the sexual autonomy of teenagers who share sexual images of themselves and the privacy of people who produce and consume some forms of virtual child pornography.
The Biden administration supported the new framework during a polarized exchange in negotiations last week. “We need to allow some flexibility for minors who engage in sexual activity and to allow domestic laws with different ages of consent,” a U.S. delegate said.
Traditional countries questioned how it’s possible to protect children from predators if individuals are allowed to produce, possess, and share any form of child pornography at all.
While the draft treaty would not make all forms of teenage or virtual child pornography legal, it expressly states that virtual child pornography may be legalized and become available in some countries so long as it does not involve “a real child” or actual sexual abuse.
The articles of the treaty also expressly allows loopholes to make teenage child pornography and other teenage-sexualized materials legal in some countries if the children depicted have reached the age of consent for sex and voluntarily share such material for “private use” between those who share the images.
Speaking on behalf of seventeen Arab countries, Egypt said the provisions of the draft treaty “severely undermine the rights of children” and that they contradict the strict standards of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child for the protection of children.
“It is of paramount importance that a person regardless of age cannot consent to the dissemination of an intimate image that constitutes child sexual abuse or child sexual exploitation material,” he said.
The Egyptian delegate also emphasized that sovereign states had a right to criminalize all forms of pornography. He said the new treaty should not undermine the right of all states “to criminalize the publication of intimate images, whether with or without the consent of the parties involved, this is in an effort to preserve order and public morals.”
A representative of Australia said that “sharing intimate images between children of the same age may be better dealt with as a privacy issue rather than exposing children to the criminal justice process.” This position was supported by the European Union.
An Austrian delegate argued that the loopholes in the new framework were important “for law enforcement, medical purposes, for science… something that we hold very dearly is art,” to which a delegate of the Russian Federation retorted, “Can someone elaborate on where images or videos of children being sexually abused can be used for medical and scientific purposes?”
The Holy See delegation said it was “extremely concerned” with the changes the treaty was proposing to the international legal framework for the protection of children. “We think that this really allows for the production of simulated and artificially generated images,” the Holy See delegate said.
The seventeen Arab countries that opposed the new standards were Algeria, Bahrein, Egypt, Iraq, Jodan, Kuwait, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, UAE, and Yemen, Iran, Syria. The position of Egypt was also echoed by Pakistan, Indonesia, Paraguay, Nicaragua and several African delegations including Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Zimbabwe, Benin, and Chad.
This is a stunning example of what comes from criminal minds who have no moral boundaries which inhibit their lasciviousness. Such lawlessness points to not only hedonism but to a demonism as well which makes lawlessness a norm.