VEZINA: Germany softens child pornography laws, pedophiles celebrate

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Why is Germany softening its laws against child pornography?

Here is a breakdown of what’s happened, some of the responses to the policy change, and an analysis of them.

In 2021, the German government passed a law making the possession of child pornography a crime with a minimum one-year custodial sentence.

It is now lowering the minimum sentence for possession to three months and for distribution of child pornography to six months.

Under German law, this will reclassify the offences from felonies to misdemeanours.

This will give judges more leeway in determining guilt or innocence, and in sentencing, particularly in cases where young people break the law without understanding the implications of what they have done.

The other reason is to differentiate between child pornographers and those trying to protect children, such as parents and teachers, who may possess and/or distribute child pornography in order to combat it.

Consider a scenario where a legal minor sends another legal minor explicit images of themselves. This is surprisingly common and why the issue of so-called “sextortion” has become a significant societal concern.

Add to this the entirely plausible outcome that these revealing images are then distributed among fellow students, and one of those students’ parents finds these images on their child’s phone and recognizes the identity of the child who sent it.

Now consider that the concerned parent who discovered the pornographic image contacts the parents of the child who sent them and sends them that image or images at the request of those parents, so they know what they are dealing with.

The problem is that the concerned parent who discovered the images on their child’s phone is now technically both in possession of child pornography and distributing it.

This same issue exists for a concerned teacher who might find this image on a student’s phone and inform the school principal or the parents involved.

Supporters of the amendments say that the law as it was originally written created a barrier to people reporting child pornography, including to the police, on the grounds they might be breaking the law.

They also argued it imposed unduly harsh sentences on young people who didn’t realize the implications of possessing and/or distributing images classified as child pornography — such as sexually explicit pictures of themselves sent to boyfriends, girlfriends or others.

One issue that hasn’t been clearly explained is why the law couldn’t have been amended to exempt parents, teachers or anyone else from prosecution for child pornography if their efforts were intended to combat it.

Complicating the issue is that pedophile advocacy groups — people who support adults having sex with children — have been emboldened by the new legislation, celebrating the change and arguing politicians had yet to apologize to those convicted under the previous law.

Pedophile activists argue that consensual intercourse should not be between consenting adults but between consenting people and if, for example, a child is able to consent and receive life-altering medical care — such as reproductive organ-altering surgery — with or without parental consent, then the child should be able to make an informed decision about his or her sexual partners.

Of course this argument is absurd.

A child giving consent to a medical procedure is a complex issue, which depends on the circumstances.

Similarly, while a parent can consent to their eight-year-old’s arm being amputated in an emergency, or to gender-altering surgery for an older child, a parent cannot consent to a 40-year-old having sex with their eight-year-old.

The issue is not parental consent.

It is that as a society we have decided children should not be having sex with adults, or be involved in sexually explicit behaviours with adults.

— Alex Vezina is the CEO of Prepared Canada Corp, teaches Disaster and Emergency Management at York University and is the author of Continuity 101. He can be reached at info@prepared.ca.