Iceland's bid to ban web porn: Nation could become first western country to block filth over fears of effects on children

Iceland could become the first Western democracy to block all internet porn under radical new proposals.

Fears about the damaging effects on children have led the government to work on legal measures to try and stop the flood of graphic sexual material reaching the island’s shores.

Interior Minister Ögmundur Jónasson has set up working parties to find the best ways to stem the tide of online images and videos being accessed by young people through computers, games consoles and smartphones.

The Icelandic government's study suggested that children exposed to violent pornography at an early age showed similar signs of trauma to those who had been actually abused

Methods under consideration include blocking porn IP addresses and making it illegal to use Icelandic credit cards to access x-rated sites.

A law forbidding the printing and distribution of porn has long been in place in the Nordic nation – but it has yet to be updated to cover the internet.

Two years ago, the Icelandic Parliament – led by female prime minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir - successfully banned all strip clubs on the grounds that they violated the civil rights of the women who worked there and were harmful to society.

This argument - that porn violates the rights of both women who appear in it and children who are exposed to it - is the cornerstone of the new proposals under discussion.

Spearheading reform: Interior Minister Ögmundur Jónasson

Alarm over the harmful effects of internet sex were raised in Iceland in 2010 when the Government launched a wide-ranging consultation process on how rape cases are handles in the justice system.

The investigation was followed by a further consultation on porn, which included teachers, law enforcers and organisations working with abused children.

It concluded that the extremely violent nature of the material now freely available on the web was increasing the intensity of sex attacks.

It also found that children exposed to violent pornography at an early age were showing the similar signs of trauma as youngsters who had been actually abused.

These included becoming increasingly isolated and playing out what they had seen on the internet on younger family members or other children.

Mr Jónasson of the country’s Left Green Movement says the safety of children must be ‘a priority’.

He says filtering out porn is not a question of censorship, adding: ‘We have to be able to discuss a ban on violent pornography, which we all agree has a very harmful effects on young people and can have a clear link to incidences of violent crime.’

Halla Gunnarsdóttir, political adviser to the Interior Minister, said the agreement among education experts, law enforcers and other bodies that action must be taken means she is optimistic the proposals will become law, despite a general election in April.

She says: ‘There is a strong consensus building in Iceland.

‘We have so many experts from educationalists to the police and those who work with children behind this, that this has become much broader than party politics.



‘At the moment, we are looking at the best technical ways to achieve this. But surely if we can send a man to the moon, we must be able to tackle porn on the internet.

‘This move is not anti-sex. It is anti-violence because young children are seeing porn and acting it out. That is where we draw the line.

‘This material is blurring the boundaries for young people about what is right and wrong.’

It is no longer acceptable to keep blaming parents for the fact that children see graphic sexual content, added Miss Gunnarsdóttir. ‘Parents are not the only ones responsible for protecting our young people. They cannot be with their children all the time and the porn industry actively tries to seek children out.

‘Children also no longer use computers just in their homes. They access the internet in many places, in many ways and on smartphones. We say protecting our children is a task for the whole society.’

Iceland, which has a claim to be the world’s oldest parliament democracy, has a population of 319,000 – around the same number of people who live in Southampton.

It is the second largest island in Europe after Great Britain – and its relatively isolated position at the most western edge of Europe, just below the Arctic Circle, may make the measures easier to implement.

The move is liked to be monitored by Prime Minister David Cameron who has said he finds it ‘utterly appalling’ that so many children in the UK have been exposed to the ‘darkest corners’ of the internet.

The Daily Mail has also been campaigning for an automatic block on online pornography that means customers must ‘opt in’ for access.

Growing British consensus: David Cameron, left, has said that it is 'utterly appalling' that so many children have seen online pornography. A sentiment echoed by Labour's Diane Abbott, right

Just as in Iceland, recent comments by Labour frontbenchers, like Diane Abbott, suggests an emerging political consensus on the need for radical thinking to deal with the pornification of childhood.

While countries like China have also tried to stamp out internet pornogaphy within its borders, this is the first attempt by a Western democracy.

Professor Gail Dines, a world authority on pornography and speaker at a recent conference at Reykjavik University on the issue, says: ‘Iceland is taking a very progressive approach that no other democratic country has tried.

‘It is looking a pornography from a new position - from the perspective of the harm it does to the women who appear in it and as a violation of their civil rights.