Crime Apr. 19, 2008 - 04:22AM JST ( 12 )

TOKYO —

The ruling coalition parties decided Friday to seek a general ban on the possession of child porn images and to impose prison terms on those who posses or store such images to satisfy their sexual desire, lawmakers said.

The Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the New Komeito party, are aiming to craft a bill to amend the law against child prostitution and child pornography by mid-May and to submit it to the ongoing Diet session jointly with opposition parties.
   
The move comes as Japan is being pressured to revise the law to bring it into line with other Group of Eight member nations. Japan and Russia are the only members of the G-8 that do not prohibit the possession of such images.

The other G-8 member states are Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United States. The ruling bloc project team, meanwhile, plans to study the possibility of requiring Internet service providers to restrict access to child porn websites and the introduction of other measures to check the spread of child porn images online.

Meanwhile, a U.S. justice department official urged Japan on Friday to ban individual possession of child pornography as the country comes under pressure to step up its efforts to tackle the problem.

Andrew Oosterbaan, head of the department’s child exploitation and obscenity section, said the Internet was encouraging the creation and sharing of “horrific” images, including of tortured and sexually abused infants and toddlers.

“We must understand that a part of the reason this is difficult to beat is people everywhere have a lack of understanding why possession is as serious as any other crime of child pornography,” he told a press conference here.

U.S. police can access the computers of those who possess child porn to prevent further harm to children, said Oosterbaan, who has called on lawmakers to criminalize individual possession of such porn during his Japan visit.

“We are focusing on possessors because we know when we get that computer, there is a good chance the computer is going to show us that he was producing, that he was banking images, that he was abusing children, making images,” he said.

“Or, we are going to find out that the computer belongs to a teacher or a minister or a priest. While you are not going to prosecute the problem away, it’s important that you don’t ignore it either,” he said.

The United States and other developed countries, as well as the United Nations Children’s Fund, have accused Japan of laxity in allowing child pornography.

Japan, once under fierce criticism as a major producer of child pornography, passed a law in 1999 banning the production and sale of sexually arousing photos, videos and other materials involving children aged below 18.

 

Wire reports