Spain promises to limit minors’ access to pornography, Evangelical Focus

The Spanish government plans to take drastic measures to restrict access to pornographic content by minors.

President Pedro Sánchez made the announcement in an interview with a Spanish newspaper. El PaisHe outlined a three-point strategy to seek a “national consensus” to protect minors online.

“First of all, it’s a comprehensive law to protect minors,” Sanchez explained. “The second is an interdisciplinary strategy from the fields of education, competency and equality,” and the third is “the creation of devices that prevent minors from accessing pornographic content.”

While the first two measures have been developed through strategy and legislation in recent months, the third measure is new.

Access to pornographic content on the Internet is now completely open. Pornographic websites, a business worth millions of euros a year, do not require any kind of certification to prove the legal age of those who visit them.

Sanchez said the government believes there is an “epidemic of minors with access to pornographic content” and that “one in four young people under the age of 12 accesses or consumes pornography.” He pointed out that he was aware of this. Almost half of young people under the age of 15 consume it. ”

“This is not Puritanism,” the president added. “It not only impacts the education of our youth, but also the future actions they will take on transcendent issues like equality.”

In recent years, many conferences and initiatives have warned of the dangers of pornography, not only for minors, but also for the harm that its consumption causes to social sentiment and family relationships, and the harm that its consumption causes to other acts such as prostitution and human trafficking. It also refers to relationships. Human trafficking.

The second conference in 2020, “Pornography, Childhood and Women”, emphasized that “pornography is a symbol of inequality between women and men in the 21st century”.

“The pornification of culture is a reality and is changing the media ecosystem that speaks directly to who women and girls are today,” tournament director Leticia Porto told a Spanish news website. protestant digital.

“For example, the latest study on the consumption of child pornography shows that Spain is the second country in the world and the first in the European Union for the consumption of this type of material,” Porto said.

Whether adolescents or adults, the consumption of pornography, especially by men, can cause “serious relationship problems.” Disappointment in relationships because the fiction they are used to does not exist. A compulsive personality is unable to control its impulses, which affects their emotional, sensitive, and emotional development. ”

Access to pornography is a global concern.

British psychiatrist Glyn Harrison said in a 2018 interview that “the vast majority of children come to know and experience sex through pornography.” And that’s a big problem.”

“Pornography plays with the human mind, drawing us into patterns that are difficult to break out of,” he said.

Pete Lupton, a member of nepornoA Czech organization that aims to help people overcome porn addiction stresses that part of the problem is that “we currently live in a very hypersexualized civilization.” did. Pornography teaches us that it’s okay to accept others as objects of desire, as long as it makes us happy. You stop recognizing them as human beings with their own dignity. ”

Lupton explains that in recent years there has been an increase in requests for help from people who want to stop using pornography.

In Spain, the Spanish Evangelical Alliance (AEE) has been tackling the issue of pornography for three years through courses for leaders.

AEE President Marcos Zapata considers pornography to be “an invisible enemy that no one watches and that no one wants to talk about.”

“The statistics in our country are alarming, with first contact with pornography starting at 8 o’clock and regular consumption starting at 11 o’clock. The children, youth, and young adults of our church cannot be ignorant of this reality. Unfortunately, the same goes for adults.”

That is why, as Christians, we must confront this social scourge with remorse and suggestions for personal change and transformation. The day will come when we will propose legislation to limit the promotion and consumption of “promotion of prostitution and the degradation of the human dignity that God created us to be,” Zapata added.

At the last Family and Leadership Consultation organized by the Spanish Evangelical Alliance’s Working Group on Families, the issue of pornography was addressed in a presentation by psychologist Kari Crewett.

In 2021, the Council of Europe adopted a resolution calling for European countries to legally regulate pornography, particularly aimed at minors, both in terms of production and access.

The fight against pornography has been on the political agenda in France since 2019, with a focus on the dangers to minors.

In 2023, the French Senate unanimously approved a proposal to make the fight against pornographic violence a public policy priority, which calls for, among other things, an age-control system for visitors to pornographic websites.

The motion calls for “strengthening the staffing and material resources available to criminal prosecution, investigative agencies and judges to combat pornographic violence and stop the distribution of illegal violent content.”

It also called for a special tax on “pornographic activities” and for sexual violence committed in the context of pornography to be considered an incitement to rape or sexual assault.

This bill is currently being debated in the French National Assembly.