Protect Children from Pornography: Ending the Accessibility of Sexually Explicit Material to Minors

By. Emma Elshaw

There are a plethora of porn sites out there, many of which can be accessed by anyone at any time, regardless of their age. This means that minors can be exposed to these sites and the explicit material they contain, whether intentionally or unintentionally.  There are currently no protocols or laws in place that force these sites to go through an age-verification process in Canada.

In order to combat this, Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne has put forth a bill that would force porn sites to begin verifying the age of those who use their sites. “If you're a minor, you can't see a movie if it's classified 18 years and over. If you're a minor, you can't buy a Playboy. But if you're a minor, you have complete, unfettered access without barriers of any kind to 4.5 million porn sites around the world,” says Miville-Dechêne in this CBC article. 

Miville-Dechêne is not the first one to bring this issue forward. In 2013, MP Joy Smith also hoped to put forward legislation that would block all pornography content, or would force people to opt in or request access from their internet provider to view porn. You can read about her efforts in this CBC article. 

Canada is also not the first country to think of this. In 2016, the UK Council for Child Internet Safety published a document that outlined the desire to see children protected from the dangers of unlimited and uncensored access to pornogrophy. In the document’s forward, Co-chairs of the UK Council write that “pornography has never been more easily accessible online, and material that would previously have been considered extreme has become part of mainstream online pornography. When young people access this material it risks normalising behaviour that might be harmful to their future emotional and psychological development.” 

This should not be happening - but it is. Young people are being exposed to explicit material, and violent material at that. Julia Beazley, a speaker with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) who focuses on pornography and human trafficking, among other topics, says, “What is now mainstream in pornography is aggressive, violent, and dehumanizing. The themes of dominating and humiliating women are common.” The things they are seing on these sites can have long-term, lasting effects on how they view women, sex, and themselves - and this can be true for not only boys who watch porn, but also for girls. Added to this is the fact that many of the videos are of trafficked persons: one study indicates that nearly 50% of trafficked women say that pornography was made of them while they were being trafficked. This is not only a pornography issue (and its accessibility to minors), but also a human trafficking issue. 

A change is needed - and you can be part of that change! Please take a moment to read the bill put forth by Senator Miville-Dechêne and sign the petition, calling upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-203, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.