(ZENIT News – Center for Family and Human Rights / New York, 08.20.2024).- The United Nations General Assembly will adopt a new international treaty against cybercrime that opens the door to depictions of pedophilia and legalizes some forms of child pornography long considered illegal. This initiative of European countries has many traditional countries unhappy.
According to article 14 of the treaty countries may choose to decriminalize the production, distribution, and possession of visual, written or audio content depicting children that are sexually abused, so long as they do not represent an “existing person” or do not visually depict actual “child sexual abuse or child sexual exploitation.”
The delegation of Iran and the Democratic Republic of the Congo called for a vote to delete these exceptions in a tense final negotiation last week. They argued that these exceptions would be used to harm children and promote perverse sexual practices.
The delegate of the Congo said the provisions conflicted with the prohibition on child pornography in the Optional Protocol of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a binding international treaty that has been ratified by 173 states. Fifty-one countries voted to delete the provisions, but the provisions were ultimately retained. Ninety-one countries led by the United States and the European Union voted to keep them.
The United States’ support for these provisions is surprising, given that the United States government was the main promoter of the strict standard against child pornography in the Optional Protocol of the Convention on the Rights of the Child only twenty-five years ago. That treaty established groundbreaking rules to help combat child pornography, including strict liability for mere possession of child pornography.
Many delegations also sought to delete provisions in the treaty that give countries the option to legalize sexting by children, including sexting between children who have reached the age of consent and adults. The treaty only prohibits the non-consensual distribution of such images beyond the consenting parties.
Delegations who supported the exceptions to some forms of child pornography argued that these would not harm children and emphasized that the convention was groundbreaking because it required all parties to criminalize the “non-consensual disclosure of intimate images.”
The international effort to promote pornography for children is not new. Several years ago, UNICEF issued and then later under pressure retracted a report that said porn can be good for kids.
After adoption of the new treaty language, several delegations remained unconvinced and voiced their concerns with the loopholes again, including Nicaragua, Niger, Djibouti, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Iraq, Guatemala, Mali, Tanzania, Venezuela, Thailand, Syria, Burkina Faso, Paraguay, Senegal, Morocco, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and Zimbabwe.
“I would like to ask again whose rights are we protecting, those of criminals or the victims?” said a delegate from Russia.
The new treaty was adopted last Friday after three years of negotiations. Beyond the issue of child sexual abuse, it requires cooperation between law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute data crimes, financial crimes, and other crimes committed through the use of information technology. It also contains several voluntary provisions related to providing financial assistance and capacity building to poor countries.
The treaty is expected to be formally adopted by the General Assembly later this year and will be open for signatures by countries. It will only enter into force after forty countries ratify it.
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