"The Parliament also called for mandatory age verification for porn sites, but voted down a Patriot proposal on deporting migrant child rapists."
From The European Conservative
By Tamás Orbán
The Parliament also called for mandatory age verification for porn sites, but voted down a Patriot proposal on deporting migrant child rapists.
The European Parliament has passed a sweeping new child protection law—but only after scrubbing all references to “pedophilia” and adding protections for children’s “gender identity.”
The directive, adopted in Strasbourg on June 17th, replaces outdated EU legislation on child sexual exploitation and brings the rules in line with today’s digital realities. But some of the final text’s omissions—and additions—have sparked criticism, particularly from conservatives who say it ignores key threats such as migrant grooming gangs and gender ideology in schools.
Somewhat paradoxically, the EPP rapporteur—the lead negotiator from the centrrist European People’s Party—removed all mentions of “pedophilia” and “pedophiles” from the group’s own version compared to the Commission’s initial proposal before sending it to the plenary, while adding several new passages to ensure that children’s “gender identity” is always respected.
The EPP also added and narrowly passed a last-minute amendment calling for “robust and effective age verification tools” for all porn sites in the EU, and penalizing non-compliance with maximum one year in prison. While the idea of making porn inaccessible for children is worth pursuing, it’s also important to ensure that such initiatives are not used to stealthily undermine online anonymity.
Nonetheless, the final vote on the package passed with almost unanimous support from both left- and right-wing parties on Tuesday, June 17th—599 votes in favor, 2 against, and 62 abstentions—but conservatives still criticized it for failing to address foreign grooming gangs or the psychological harm done to children via premature exposure to gender ideology.
The primary aim of the legislation is to further harmonize criminal laws against child sexual exploitation, including those enabled by technological developments, such as smartphones and social media. It also introduces common rules for large platforms to counter the spread of child porn online, as well as minimum standards for victim protection and support.
Every party agrees with this basic outline, as evidenced by the fact that the initial report was adopted unanimously in the Parliament’s civil liberties (LIBE) committee last month. However, despite supporting it in general, some conservatives feel that a few important details are still missing, such as the automatic deportation of illegal migrants who are caught sexually abusing children.
“We need to make sure that our courts and police can confront these crimes—legislation on this is good and welcome. But we could make things easier by having automatic expulsion of foreign pedophiles,” argued French MEP Mathilde Androuet of the Patriots for Europe (PfE) group. “We see grooming gangs in the UK and the Netherlands, for example, and we can’t allow these predators to get away with it.”
The other main criticism coming from all conservative groups is that, unsurprisingly, the text fails to address the harm done by exposing children to LGBT ideology at an early age, while, on the other hand, it includes paragraphs to ensure the protection of children’s sexual and gender identities.
“Linking this to LGBTQ issues is deeply hypocritical. We’re talking about the oversexualization of children in our societies across Europe,” said Estonian MEP Jaak Madison of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), before hitting back at a German MEP who suggested earlier that criticizing the idea of gender-transitioning among minors is ‘hate speech.’
“Sorry, this is not hate speech, this is democracy,” Madison said. “We want to protect children, so we should go much deeper into this question and get to the bottom of what exactly is pedophilia.”
MEP Zsuzsanna Borvendég, of the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) group, brought up similar arguments, pointing out that the text mentions neither the growing phenomenon of child marriages—which are closely linked to Islamic migration and the failure of integration—nor the activities of LGBT lobbies, which undermine the healthy development of children.
“If you recognize that sexual content online can be dangerous to children, then why is it taboo to say that Pride events featuring obscene sexual content while trying to influence children’s sexual identity, or the spread of the gender ideology in schools disguised as sexual education classes, are a form of mental abuse as well?” she asked. “You attack Hungary’s child protection laws, even though instead of punishing them, they should be followed.”
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