Child porn increasing in SA
2005-02-03 08:36
Cape Town - The number of child pornography cases under investigation and of offenders being prosecuted is drastically increasing in South Africa just as elsewhere in the world, the Films and Publications Board warned on Wednesday.
The board said child pornography - especially depictions of child abuse - was a growing concern.
"Even more disturbing is evidence that depictions of child abuse are being produced in the country," the board said in its 2004 annual report tabled in parliament on Wednesday.
In the year under review (2003-04), the board issued 18 certificates related to prosecution cases in which it couldn't state that the material involved was not child pornography.
The Films and Publications Act requires these certificates before a suspect can be prosecuted.
Of the 3 424 films the board classified during this time, most - 977 or 29% - fell into category X18 (age restriction with a warming).
Of the 238 computer games classified by the board, 8 (7%) were given an age restriction of 18, 29 (24%) got a restriction of 16, and 55 (46%) a restriction of 13.
Iyavar Chetty, acting head of the board, said in the report recent studies showed that audiovisual media in particular had a significant effect on the psychological development of children.
Quoting a study by Drs Ted Baehr and Tom Snyder in the United States, he said they had found that children spent 40 000 hours on films, videos, television, video games, listening to music and reading popular magazines and books by the time they turned 17. In contrast they spent 11 000 hours at school, 2 000 hours with their parents and 800 hours in church.