Draft law No. 9623, designed to decriminalise voluntary adult pornographic materials, was registered in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine today. 25 People’s Deputies led by Yaroslav Zhelezniak co-initiated it.
BRDO team, together with other public organisations, participated in the development of the draft law and took the initiative of decriminalisation.
What does the bill propose?
Abolish criminal liability for:
- importation, production, sale and distribution of pornographic materials (Article 301 of the Criminal Code);
- maintenance of places of debauchery and prostitution (Article 302 of the Criminal Code) – it is important that this article does not apply to prostitution and pimping, for which no changes are proposed.
At the same time, leave criminal responsibility for:
- obtaining access to child pornography, its acquisition, storage, importation, transportation or other movement, production, sale and distribution;
- distribution of pornography among minors;
- production, distribution and sale of extreme pornography;
- distribution and sale of pornography without the consent of the person depicted in it (revenge-porn, deep-fake), as well as the production of pornography without the knowledge of the person depicted in it;
- involvement in prostitution, pimping, human trafficking.
According to Igor Samokhodskyi, Head of BRDO IT and Telecom sector, “We have really important problems in the field of porn: child porn, human trafficking (coercion, etc.). These are separate crimes that we do not propose to decriminalise in any case. On the contrary, when the police stop chasing after nude photos/videos of adults, they should have more time for really important things, like the fight against child pornography.”
Therefore, we call on people’s deputies to adopt draft law No. 9623 as soon as possible and free up the time resources of Ukrainian law enforcement officers to fight against truly urgent threats.
Read more about what is wrong with Ukrainian legislation in the field of pornography and how this issue is regulated in EU countries in our previous publication.