Child advocates say new statute is an improvement but are unhappy with exception for manga and video games

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Japan's parliament has passed a law that bans possession of child abuse images, but it excludes sexually explicit depictions of children in comics, animation and computer graphics.

The upper house voted on Wednesday to approve the law, which was passed by the lower house earlier this month.

The law provides for prison terms of up to one year and fines of up to 1m yen ($9,800) for having sexually abusive photographs or videos of children. It allows a grace period of one year for people owning such materials to dispose of them.

The law was first proposed in May 2013 as an amendment to an earlier law that banned production and distribution of child abuse images but not ownership of such materials.

Child advocates and other critics of the new legislation say it is a long-overdue improvement but are unhappy with the exclusion of depictions of sexual fantasies involving children in manga comic books, anime and video games. Pictures of children as young as toddlers posed in sexually suggestive ways are easily found online in Japan.

The exclusion was made after publishers' and lawyers' associations contended that a ban on such images would violate the constitutional right of free speech.

According to humantrafficking.org, Japan is a hub for the production and distribution of child abuse images, part of a massive sex industry that includes prostitutes dressed in school uniforms and other outfits meant to cater to paedophiles.

The new law requires internet providers and other such companies to co-operate with police in preventing and investigating distribution of child abuse images, which it defines as photos and videos that expose or focus on children's sexual parts.

Police say widespread use of smartphones has aided the distribution of child abuse images. They reported 1,644 cases of such images being distributed

in 2013.