Members of Parliament propose that the Verkhovna Rada decriminalize pornography in the part that does not pose a public danger.
“Criminal liability will remain exclusively for non-consensual porn (pornography, deep fake), extreme porn (violence, animal, necrophilia), porn with children and for children (we will also toughen it up). That’s it. For everything else, we are removing criminal liability from Articles 301 and 302. So that the imagination of law enforcement officers does not generate 1000+ cases a year,” said Yaroslav Zheleznyak, a member of the Voice faction and co-author of the bill, in his telegram channel on Tuesday.
At the same time, he emphasized that pimping, involvement in prostitution and human trafficking remain criminal offenses.
Zhelezniak also noted that the draft law would be published on the Verkhovna Rada’s website in three days, so he supplemented his post with the text of the document and its supporting documents.
Thus, according to the draft law, the distribution or sale of pornography without the consent of the person depicted in it, or the production of such products depicting a person who is not aware of such actions, will be punishable by a fine of one thousand to three thousand tax-free minimum incomes (NMIT), i.e. UAH 17,000-5,000, or arrest for up to six months, or restraint of liberty for up to three years.
The parliamentarians propose to punish the production, distribution or sale of extreme pornography with a fine of 3000 to 5000 tax-free minimum incomes (UAH 51000-85000) or restriction of liberty for a term of three to five years, or imprisonment for up to three years.
The penalty for the sale of pornography to a minor or its distribution among minors, as well as forcing a person to participate in the creation of pornography, is proposed to be a fine of 5,000 to 10,000 tax-free minimum incomes (UAH 85,000 to 17,000) or imprisonment for a term of three to seven years.
If the above actions are committed with the use of power, official or professional authority, the fine will be from 10,000 to 25,000 tax-free minimum incomes (UAH 170000-425,000), and imprisonment for a term of seven to ten years with or without deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities for up to three years.
In addition, the authors of the legislative initiative propose to close legislative gaps by defining the concepts of “pornography” and “extreme pornography.”
Thus, the deputies propose to define pornography as any material objects, items, printed, audio, video products, messages and materials, media products, the content of which is an image of a person in a real or simulated sexually explicit image or engaged in real or simulated sexually explicit behavior, or any image of genitals for sexual purposes.
The drafters of the bill consider extreme pornography to be pornography that contains images of violent acts, sexual acts with an animal (zoophilia) or with the body of a deceased person (necrophilia).
