Via AVN:
Aussies Now Face Prison Time for Porn Possession
“The New Zealand Herald reports that a bill presented to the Australian Parliament Tuesday would brand anybody caught with five or more pornographic items in the aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory a “trafficker,” punishable by up to two years in prison.
Introduced to the Parliament by Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough, the draft laws would prohibit the delivery of pornographic materials into the area, and charge anybody possessing the forbidden five or more items with trafficking, regardless of whether they have any intent to profit from them.”
The Guardian had a story about this a couple months ago.
Aborigines face ban on alcohol and porn
“Some Aboriginal leaders immediately attacked the plan as “disgusting and paternalistic”, saying they were not consulted and that they objected to restrictions on how indigenous people spend their welfare benefits.”
(snip)
Aboriginal leaders said it was the kind of government behaviour that disenfranchised their people and created the problems in the first place.
“I’m absolutely disgusted by this patronising government control,” said Mitch, who uses one name and is a member of a government board helping Aborigines who were taken from their parents under past assimilation laws. “And tying drinking with welfare payments is just disgusting.
“If they’re going to do that, they’re going to have to do that with every single person in Australia, not just black people.”
—
With a name like Little Children Are Sacred I was immediately wary of the report. Yes children should be protected. But saying that their “sacred” sounds like some religious bias snuck in. Children are not little angels walking among us.
The report listed several other factors. This article gives us some report extracts-”the cumulative effects of poor health, alcohol, drug abuse, gambling, pornography, unemployment, poor education and housing and general disempowerment lead inexorably to family and other violence and then on to s-xual abuse of men and women and, finally, of children”. Oh no! What if Johnny and Billy bet on a sporting event? Are they suddenly abusing themselves?
And why is this suddenly such a crisis? As Alan Carpenter, the West Australian Premier, so rightly points out “Howard had only declared it a national emergency after 11 years in office.”
There are several distrubing factors at play here-that owners of porn would be considered “traffickers” even if they don’t intend to sell it, that pornography is considered the cause of child abuse, the fact that the bill is only for the Aboriginal communities leaves a bad taste of racism in one’s mouth. What does the evil taint of porn only effect the “natives”?
Mind you, I’m not saying nothing should be done. But the idea that banning porn and alcohol will magically solve the problems outlined in the Little Children Are Sacred report is ridiculous.
Two more links to the story:
Draconian law will jail porn ‘traffickers’
Howard bans alcohol, porn in indigenous communities
Posted by Vixen as News at 10:58 PM CDT