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Child welfare groups though are not satisfied because the new ban exempts manga comics and animated films.
The Liberal Democratic party and its junior coalition partner are in the midst of making legislation in Japan on par of the rest of the developed countries when it comes to child pornography. In Japan as long as owners of child porn do not post their collections online they are free and clear.
Japan is one of the world’s leaders when it comes to supplying child porn. After the United States it is also the largest consumer of images. Japan banned the production, sale and distribution of images of children under 18 in 1999.
The banning of owning child porn comes on the heels of comments made by the US ambassador to Tokyo, Thomas Scieffer.
Unlike some people in adult pornography, children are not willing or paid participants. The majority of images and videos depict the violent and brutal sexual assault of children, most of them younger than 12 years old. We are talking about child rape.”
Kunio Hatoyama, justice minister, agrees that child pornography is a reprehensible market. Taking the loophole of being able to own the material will make it more difficult for those marketing it to be able to distribute.
While child welfare groups are pleased that the new law is on the way they are upset that the manga market wasn’t included in the writing.
We would like the revised law to cover manga, but it is extremely difficult,” Yuka Saito of Unicef’s Japan office told the Guardian.
“We keep encountering arguments about freedom of expression, but if the US and other countries can ban that kind of material, why does Japan continue to tolerate it?”
Saito says that the vast market of Japanese child pornography is impossible to gauge because it covers illegal websites and DVDs.
Police though have seen the increasing demands for it though. Last year alone 304 children under the age of 18 were IDed as victims. That figure is 20% higher than 2006 and the nations’ highest since records on victims began in 1999. In 1999 there were 25 child pornography cases in Japan. By 2006 that number rose to 585 cases where the police were prosecuting.
The new law appears to be popular with Japanese citizens. 70% of adults
surveyed were in favour with banning possession. 89% of those surveyed also would like for manga and other illustrations to be included with the new law.
Manga though is a 500bn yen market with a large amount of those having sexually explicit input. Sadomasochism and raping of schoolgirls is a common theme. MPs fear that by banning the genre men would not have an outlet for their sexual urges forcing them to commit serious offences.
