A grey area in the law that prevents taking and distributing pornographic images of children legally allows sexually-charged photographs of children to be released and viewed every day.
The images that fall into the grey zone show young children who are obviously being posed in ways designed to be erotic: scantily clad, wearing adult makeup and pouting sexually, for example – even though they are not being abused and have their genitalia covered
Members of Socialdemokraterne (S) want new laws in place to close the loopholes.
“We are open to seeing if there can be additions to the current penal code to outlaw these types of images,” S spokesperson Trine Bramsen told Politiken newspaper. “If there is anything that we as legislators can do to punish the people taking these pictures, we will do it.”
The eye of the beholder
Bramsen admitted that identifying exactly which pictures are offensive can get tricky.
“It should never mean that a mother cannot take a picture of her baby at the pool in the summertime,” she said.
Venstre spokesperson Karsten Lauritzen said that police need to get better at enforcing the laws already on the books.
“These photos greatly offend me,” Lauritzen told Politiken. “That being said, the most effective way to get rid of them is to enforce existing legislation as most of them are already in violation of the law.”
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The majority of parties in parliament are in favour of tightening the current laws.
