Child pornography has been made a crime in 2021. A year of practice shows that the consequences can also hit young people hard when they commit crimes that have nothing to do with child pornography. The Association of Judges is alarmed, and the Minister of Justice also sees a need.
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - In view of the significant increase in judgments against young people for acts that actually ignore the core injustice of child pornography, Justice Minister Marion Gentges (CDU) can also imagine corrections to the law. In principle, the harsh penalties for child pornography are correct, she told the German Press Agency. She also cannot accept the argument of a burdened judiciary. "For the question of criminal liability, the decisive factor should not be what the judiciary can afford, but what is legally required," said Gentges. However, it makes sense to "further develop" the law and to regulate a less serious case in the law.
With such a possibility, there is leeway, for example, to react to cases in student chat groups in which a student is sent an unsolicited picture and does not delete it directly. On the one hand, child and youth pornographic material is being shared more and more frequently in these groups, often without any awareness of wrongdoing - on the other hand, the senders are very often not aware that they are committing a punishable offense.
The reason for the debate is the law to combat sexualized violence against children, which has been in force since July 2021. With him, possession, distribution and acquisition of child pornography is a crime by law. Hiring due to insignificance or subject to conditions and instructions is no longer possible.
The German Association of Judges had previously called for improvements to the law. "After a year of experience with the tightened penal regulations, it turned out that there was an urgent need for a revision," said DRB federal manager Sven Rebehn. He welcomed a Brandenburg initiative for the Conference of Ministers of Justice to reduce the offense of child pornography, which had been upgraded to a crime, to a misdemeanor or at least to provide a regulation for less serious cases. "The Federal Minister of Justice should take this up as soon as possible and initiate a correction."
Child pornography is, for example, images of serious sexual abuse of children. According to the ministry, the number of convictions for dealing with child pornography rose by a full 40 percent in Baden-Württemberg last year - from 382 in 2020 to 535 convictions in 2021. Last year, Gentges also took on the responsibility of the parents appeals. But it is also a phenomenon affecting society as a whole, with which parents and students should not be left alone, she said.
