The World Assembly,
Applauding previous efforts to protect the rights of children through resolutions including but not limited to GA#4, GA#222, and GA#297,
Recalling the recent repeal of GA#300, which placed a ban, however slightly flawed, on child pornography,
Believing in the moral necessity to protect children from potential exploitation,
1. Hereby defines for the purposes of this resolution:
- "Child" as a person under the age of majority (or age of consent, whichever is higher) in a member state, and, in any judicial process involving definitions of a "child" involving more than one member state, the definition shall use the highest age of majority among member states relevant to such judicial processes;
- "Child pornography" as any visual depictions that is a pornographic depiction of a person who is or is being depicted as a child, regardless of if it is made by electronic or any other means, and regardless of whether it depicts a real person;
- "Pornographic depiction" is in turn defined as any depiction of sexual activities and any exposure of body parts customarily deemed by a member nation to be pornographic; any depiction of one or more children engaging in sexual activity, posing in a suggestive or sexual manner, or any kind of nude depiction of one or more children.
2. Hereby prohibits, as a felony offense, the import, export, creation, possession, use and distribution of child pornography within and between any member state(s);
- Should the offense be limited to simple possession and committed by a person who is a child themselves, the offense need not necessarily be elevated to a felony;
3. Hereby further requires that in prosecutions for the aforesaid offence in judicial proceedings, it is a defense for the defendant to establish at least one of the following:
- The depiction is required for a genuine educational, scientific or medical purpose and distributed only strictly to person(s) that require such depictions and no others;
- The possession of such items of child pornography was not requested, and the defendant had both (a) reported and turned over such items to the law enforcement authority of a member state as soon as practicable and (b) endeavored to destroy such items as soon as practicable after the said reporting;
- The possession of such items of child pornography was kept to be used strictly for the purposes of being used as evidence in judicial proceedings, was indeed not used for any other purpose, and only those relevant to the specific judicial proceeding have access to the child pornography, and only when absolutely necessary for the judicial proceeding;
- The depiction was believed on reasonable grounds to not be that of a child when originally depicted and that the person was not depicted as a child.
- The depiction is not of a real child, was not made for or used for any sexual purposes, does not depict the child in any sexually suggestive way, and has genuine artistic merit.
- The depiction is of a real child, was not made for or used for any sexual purposes, does not depict the child in any sexually suggestive way, and was kept for the private needs of a family.
Co-author: Simone Republic
