Swiss parliament wants stricter rules to protect minors against pornography

The Parliament of Switzerland wants to implement stricter rules to protect minors from being confronted with pornography. Recently, the government body passed a motion concerning this issue.

The so-called Nationalrat (National Council, Chamber of Representatives) accepted the motion with 109 vs 66 votes, IDEA reports. The EPP, a centre-right pro-European political party, took the initiative to tighten the rules. EPP representative Nik Gugger referred to this during the debate on May 9. Article 197 forbids the accessibility of pornography for minors under the age of 16. However, according to Gugger, this ban is not effective at all.

The politician partly blames the lack of technical blockades for this. In addition, he finds that the effectiveness of media training for children is overrated. In his proposal, Gugger writes: "Prevention is a valuable addition, but not a substitute."

Therefore, Gugger proposed that internet operators ban providers that distribute pornographic material and do not take sufficient precautions to block people under 16. "Asking the user to confirm that their minimum age with one click is not enough", the politician argued in his proposal.

According to Gugger, the motion calls for a solution that technically prevents youngsters from being confronted with pornography. "For example, one could control access to pornography by incorporating appropriate age identification, like a credit card number that has to be entered."

The politician stresses that he does not aim at establishing network blocks to specific websites. However, he warns that internet blocking would be a real possibility if the government does not implement effective age identification.

Remarkable is that the Federal Council of Switzerland earlier rejected the motion.

"Porn endangers mental and physical integrity of minors"

Public Health Switzerland has been calling for the protection of minors for a long time already. According to the association of health professionals, pornography endangers young people's mental and physical integrity, Klein Report writes.