There are calls for promoting research on the effects of manga and anime on sex offenses against children to be included under the new law banning possession, but certain quarters have objected to it and have staged campaigns against it. As long as real children are not involved, their genitals not shown, any violent, sexual act against children can be portrayed. Disgracefully, Japan was the last member of developed countries groups such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to make possession a punishable offence.īut because the ban does not apply to animated cartoons, comics cartoons and games, anyone can access sexually abusive images of children depicted in manga through the internet or at stores. Under the new law passed in June, banning the possession of child pornography, any person found with photos or video of children can be jailed for up to a year or fined up to $10,000. In 2004, that law was expanded to include material distributed through all forms of media, including the internet. This is despite a law passed in 1999 which banned the production, distribution and sale of child pornographic materials.
Perhaps this attitude stems from the fact that Japan has been and is still an international centre for the production and distribution of child pornography, according to a 2013 US State department report. Hence, though more than 90 percent of the public supported outlawing the possession of child pornography, according to a public opinion survey conducted by the government in 2007, people tended to passively tolerate it, rather than pro-actively want to take effective measures against it. In such a porn-inured society, it is difficult for the Japanese public to perceive that treating children – mainly girls – as sexual objects is a grave concern.
And it means that the rights of those who do not want to see women and girls treated as sexual objects are simply ignored or violated. This, in turn, has reinforced the dominant male view that women and girls are sex objects and issues connected to its consumption are thus downplayed.
This has created a culture where pornography is tolerated and accepted, and its consumption normalised, especially among men, who are the main consumers of porn. People in Japan have always had easy access to pornographic materials. However, the ban did not extend to manga or anime films – which still raises troubling questions about the state of child protection, as well as the reasons for the country’s lax attitude towards children being viewed as sexual objects. In June, Japan banned the possession of child pornography after decades of criticism by local and international children’s rights activists. But it isn’t only adults whose bodies are on display: Underaged girls are routinely portrayed in suggestive ways – from teen pop groups posing in lingerie or pubescent children engaging in sexual acts in manga comic books. Go into any convenience store and you will find mainstream pornographic magazines sold alongside consumer publications while a “for adults only” sign demarcates the violent, hardcore porn magazines. The sale of pornographic materials is rampant in Japan.