Japan to outlaw kiddie Net porn trade

The Japanese government is taking steps to clean up the Internet by introducing legislation to outlaw the trade in child pornography. A report in today's Guardian says the bill to ban the country's "Lolita trade" is supported by all major political parties. The bill is due to be debated today by Japan's parliament and many commentators believe it will be introduced without too much objection. According to the international police authority, Interpol, 80 per cent of all child pornography on the Internet produced by commercial operations, as opposed to small paedophile rings, comes from Japan. Any crackdown from such a dominant source should have an impact on the future supply of this type of material onto the Internet. That, though, is for the future and doesn't address the ever-growing problem of a backlog of material that is building up on servers and computers throughout the world. A fortnight ago an anti child porn group said it had sent examples of child pornography from the Internet to political leaders throughout Europe -- including the Royal Family -- in a bid to galvanise support to outlaw kiddie porn on the Net. ®