Officials from the New Zealand Police are in the Country to lend a hand to the Ministry of Police and Prisons in areas they have requested technical assistance, following the Commissioner’s visit to Auckland last month.
One of the issues that have come up is a large number of people in Samoa accessing child pornography sites, which is of “grave concern” for the Ministry of Police and Prisons.
Commissioner of Police Auapa’au Logoitino Filipo told Radio Polynesia in an interview.
The Commissioner has condemned this form of sexual expression depiction of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct and vouched they will do everything they can to ensure these illegal contexts are banned from local networks.
According to the Commissioner, more than 400 IP addresses have been identified by the New Zealand Police officials accessing child pornography sites.
Last year Supreme Court Justice Tologata Leilani Tuala-Warren has called on Members of Parliament to consider legislation that makes it mandatory for service providers to block harmful and inappropriate content such as pornography.
Her honours made the comments while handing down the sentencing for an 18-year-old boy convicted of incest with his biological sister, who gave birth as a result.
She said pornographic material is being accessed by the accused in this case, and no doubt accessed by many children and teenagers in this country.
The Judge quoted the Brainwave Trust, that adolescents who frequently access pornography are more likely to develop unrealistic sexual values and beliefs, engage in casual sexual behavior, and engage in and experience sexual aggression.
“This is an extremely important issue which is of grave concern and one which the lawmakers in this country should address.
“Inappropriate pornographic content being accessed on his phone, led to this 18-year-old sexually violating his 12-year-old sister twice, causing her to fall pregnant.
“This is an issue that falls squarely within the domain and control of internet service providers in this country.
“Although they may not have a statutory obligation to block pornographic material on mobile devices, their sense of social responsibility should lead them to self-regulate as this unregulated content leads to sexually deviant behavior as in this case.”
Justice Tologata said the Samoa Law Reform Commission should provide assistance to the government by reviewing existing laws that regulate content to better protect our children and young persons from this type of content through legislation that makes it mandatory for service providers to block harmful and inappropriate content of pornography.