Japan yesterday finally fell into line with other developed countries and made the possession of child pornography illegal.
The upper house of parliament overwhelmingly voted in favor of a bill revising laws under which only the production and distribution of child pornography were banned.
Campaigners had long urged Japan to toughen its stance on child pornography.
The new legislation bans possession of photographs and videos depicting real children aged below 18; it does not include drawings.
The law says anyone who “possesses child pornography for the purpose of satisfying his/her sexual interest” faces being punished with imprisonment of up to one year, or a fine of up to ¥1 million (US$9,800).
The law excludes manga, anime and computer-generated graphics, following calls to protect freedom of expression.
Japan was the only member of the G7 group of industrialized nations where the possession of child porn remained legal. It is banned and subject to penalties in more than 70 countries. Japan has a large pornography industry, and visitors to the country note the ubiquity of sexual imagery and the huge volume of material available.
While it is unusual to see people reading pedophilic manga in public, mainstream comics read by commuters sometimes contain sexualized images that many Westerners find unpalatable.
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