Commendable - Child Pornography (Prevention) Act Passed

Senate passes Bill that allows maximum 20-year prison term
BY ALICIA DUNKLEY, Observer staff reporter dunkleya@jamaicaobserver.com

THE Senate yesterday passed the 2009 Child Pornography (Prevention) Act to make the production, possession and distribution of child pornography a criminal offence in Jamaica.
Child pornography, as defined by the Bill, refers to obscene pictures of children, including visual representations or images, audio recordings and written material and any visual representation that advocates sexual activity with a child.
Attorney-General and Justice Minister Senator Dorothy Lightbourne, who piloted the Bill, said the danger of technological advancement to Jamaican children has been illustrated by recent events.

"The video recording and distribution of an assault on a schoolgirl with a camera phone is a notorious example of the threat which child pornography poses for our children," Lightbourne told the Senate. "There are also reports of a thriving market for locally-made videos of children performing explicit sexual acts, some of which were captured using cell phone cameras as well as imported DVDs and other material containing child pornography."
She said that while the Bill was being passed to protect the country's children, it was also to fulfil Jamaica's undertakings under the Convention on the Rights of the Child which Jamaica signed and ratified, as well as the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, to which the country is a signatory but has not yet ratified.
Jamaica has also ratified the Convention concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour.
Under the Act, persons who knowingly accept benefits - financially or otherwise - from the production of child pornography can face a maximum 20 years in prison or a fine, or both.
Similarly, a person who has possession of, or access to pornographic material and does not promptly take reasonable steps to destroy it, if convicted will be liable to a fine or to imprisonment not exceeding eight years or both.
However, where a person shows that he has not seen, read or listened to the child pornography and had no reasonable cause to suspect that he was in possession of it or had accessed it, he will not be liable.

And persons found guilty of selling, publishing and exposing or offering child pornography to another person in any form or exposing or offering it for acquisition to another person will be liable on conviction on indictment to a fine or to imprisonment for 10 years or both.
During yesterday's debate, Government Senator Hyacinth Bennett voiced concern about the texting - termed 'sexting' by teenagers - of sexually explicit images, usually photographs.
"We must not legalise 'sexting' among adolescents," said Bennett. "If the offender is a child, the Children's Court should deal with it; however, I do not think we should overlook child pornography simply because the offender may be a child. Children must be made aware that child pornography is a crime for which they too can be punished."
Opposition Senator Basil Waite also insisted that since a person convicted under the various offences itemised in the Bill would be considered a sexual offender, the Act should allow for the person to be registered in the Sex Offenders Registry.
Opposition Senator Sandrea Falconer, meanwhile, said the police should be equipped to investigate Internet-based offences. "The police have to become Internet savvy," she said.
Colleague Opposition Senator K D Knight took it a step further.
"We are going to have a problem of enforcement because the police are so hard-pressed dealing with so-called hardcore crime," he said. "I don't think they will devote sufficient time to enforce a law such as this."

Among the issues members of the Upper House wrestled with was whether or not trials should be held in-camera to protect the minors.
Knight, who raised the issue, said it was contradictory that where child pornography was displayed for the purpose of proceedings in a court, the judge has the discretion to clear the court of all except essential persons and questioned why the entire trial should not be in this form.
"The difficulty I have is, ought not these trials to be in-camera? Because oftentimes the child will be a witness. Why would you clear the courtroom to protect a photograph but when you have a child you say fill the courtroom," he said.
Lightbourne insisted, however, that the provision should remain as is since the judge had the discretion as to who should be present in the courtroom at the time when the child should testify.