[TL notes]
I shared an article earlier today (well, yesterday) about a 21-year-old Englishman who was recently arrested at Dublin Airport for having a game on his phone which featured sexualized little girls drawn in an anime style. In the comments under my post of that article, I mentioned this NRK article in a discussion of enforcement of laws against fictional CSAM. So, I figured it would be a good idea to translate this NRK article for I guess future reference.
Because the news comm presumably wouldn’t accept a post of a two-year-old article, I have opted to share my translation of this article here instead.
Main for the main gods.
[End of TL notes]
Many Norwegians do not realize that sexualized drawings of children are illegal
By Mathias Nordhus-Kristoffersen | April 8, 2023 @ 8:13 PM.
Animations, drawings and texts which sexualize children are just as illegal as photos and videos of real children.
The Norwegian Police often finds animations and drawings which sexualize children when they go through the computers of suspected persons in cases involving abuse material. The illustrations on the screen in the above picture are LEGAL. Photo by Sara Vilde Solås for NRK.
—“It’s important to ban this type of material as well, so that curiosity doesn’t result in physical abuse against real children later,” Kristin Anette Skjebstad says. She is the chief superintendent of the Eastern Police District.
On February 28, 2023, an Østfold man in his 20s was sentenced by his district court to one year and eleven months in prison for possession of child sexual abuse material, among other things. Of the more than 10,000 illicit images and videos in the man’s possession, the majority were animated, i.e. not of real children. The police has seen several examples of exactly this before.
—“In our experience, many of the people we have questioned in these cases have not been aware of the fact that this sort of material is illegal,” Skjebstad says.
Kristin Anette Skjebstad, the chief superintendent of the Eastern Police District, believes that many people in Norway are unaware of the fact that drawings and animations which sexualize children are just as illegal as photos of real child abuse. Photo courtesy of the Norwegian Police Service.
Sexualization of Japanese culture
Comics and animation in the Japanese style of manga and anime are popular far beyond Japan’s borders. And in this fantasy[1] universe there is also a category known as hentai: manga with pornographic content.
Hentai is broadly legal, just like all other forms of pornography. However, with artistic freedom there has also emerged a market for drawings and animations which sexualize minors.
—“The West often presents Japanese culture in a sexualized manner. This goes many years back and continues to the present day, among other ways through pornographic content made in a Japanese manga or anime style, even outside Japan,” Rebecca Suter says to NRK. She is an associate professor of Japan studies at the University of Oslo.
This is an example of the type of image or animation that the police are looking for. This image is legal, but the same type of animation can also be used illegally. Image courtesy of Pixabay.
Curiosity can lead to real abuse
These illegal drawings and animations are downloaded from the Internet and so-called dark web[2] The police often find this sort of material alongside other abuse material when they confiscate computers and mobile phones.
Skjebstad says that drawings and animations are not any less criminal than photos of real children, even if the drawings don’t impact real people.
—“We see that people who are sexually attracted to children also save these sorts of comics, out of curiosity among other reasons,” Skjebstad explains.
The ban on drawings and animations which sexualize fictional children, and the ban on abuse material depicting real children, are both covered by the same section of Norway’s penal code.[3] However, drawings and animations often bring a lesser punishment compared to material depicting real abuse.
Due to the fact that the material is based on its creators’ imagination, the boundary between legal and illegal content can be somewhat fuzzy and arbitrary. The police emphasizes that in cases where there is doubt surrounding a character’s age, that the picture will always be seen as legal.
—“The child in the comic must be presented as under 18 years of age. We look at clothing, objects, location, physique, speech bubbles and similar [to determine whether this is the case].”
Fantasy as in the genre. ↩︎
Although the dark web can be calqued as det mørke nett, this article opted to use the English name instead. ↩︎
Section 311: https://lovdata.no/NLE/lov/2005-05-20-28/§311 (English translation) ↩︎
The child in the comic must be presented as under 18 years of age. We look at clothing, objects, location, physique, speech bubbles and similar [to determine whether this is the case].
Proper application of the duck test.
